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Hut site in Cathair Deargáin Theas

Hut site

What is recorded here

Seven hut shadows still mark the inside of the rath, some no larger than a sleeping berth and one wide enough to hold a whole family beneath its stone roof. They cling to the bank like rooms added later, as if the fort grew around the people already living inside it. The largest sits low in the south, its wall collapsed into a mound, but its depression in the ground remains clear enough to step into and imagine the dark. A person could have stood in that chamber looking north across the peninsula, reading the sea by the light returned from its own walls.
Impressive univallate rath KE042-069---- situated on the gentle NW slopes of Reenconnell, with an excellent outlook over much of the N side of this W end of the Dingle Peninsula. (1) Two curved sections of drystone-facing, located on the inner face of the bank on either side of the NW gap, should probably be interpreted as the inner face of a roughly circular hut, now cut-through by the entrance gap. A band of stone collapse, a little to SE, may mark the SE limit of the structure which would, therefore, measure c. 3.9m x 3.5m internally. (2) This hut, c. 4.2m in diameter internally, is built against the ringfort bank at SE. It was probably originally circular but only the SE half of the wall, .5m high, survives. (3) and (4) Two huts, probably conjoined, abut the bank at E, but their condition is such that their precise shape and size could not be determined. (5) A circular hut, 6.4 x 6m in diameter internally, located in the S sector of the rath. Its interior is depressed below the surrounding ground level and the wall is reduced to a mound of stone collapse. A very short stretch of the outer wall-face is visible at NE. (6) and (7) There are vague traces of a possible hut a little to NW of (5). A dense scatter of stone to NE of this may mark the site of another. The above description is derived from J. Cuppage, ‘Corca Dhuibhne. Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey. Ballyferriter. Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne’ (1986), no. 355. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 6 August 2013

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What survives
Recorded monument

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