Hut site, Rehill, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Rehill, Co. Kerry

On the lower northern slopes of Rehill in south Kerry, a level terrace of poor pasture holds the remains of three small drystone huts arranged within the southern wall of a subcircular enclosure.

The enclosure itself is only seven metres across and poorly preserved, but what makes this cluster worth pausing over is the first hut: a corbelled structure, a building technique in which courses of stone are laid so that each row projects slightly inward over the one below, eventually closing to form a roof without mortar or timber. At just 2.3 metres in diameter and surviving to a height of 1.1 metres, it is a compact and ancient-feeling space, with a small chamber built into its northeastern wall.

The two other huts sit close by, the second approximately 4.5 metres to the west and the third 2.6 metres to the east of the corbelled example. Both are subcircular in plan, defined by upright slabs rather than coursed walling, though the eastern hut does retain some drystone construction at its northeastern side. The western hut barely protrudes above the ground surface now, its dimensions roughly 3.9 metres by 2.3 metres; the eastern one, slightly larger at 3.6 metres by 2.5 metres, is somewhat better defined. The grouping was documented as part of the archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan and published by Cork University Press in 1996, a project that systematically recorded the extraordinary density of early remains across this part of Kerry.

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Pete F
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