Clochan, Gleann Fán, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Clochan, Gleann Fán, Co. Kerry

On a level terrace on the southern slopes of the Mount Eagle and Beennacouma ridge in Gleann Fán, three small stone structures sit conjoined, each built without mortar and each barely reaching a metre in height.

These are clochans, a type of drystone beehive hut associated with early medieval monastic and pastoral life in Ireland, particularly common on the Dingle Peninsula. What makes this grouping quietly compelling is not grandeur but arrangement: three chambers locked together, their walls sharing mass, their interiors barely large enough to stand in.

The central structure is the largest of the three, oval in plan, measuring roughly four metres by two and a half metres with walls approaching a metre thick. A north-facing entrance connects it to a smaller circular chamber to the southeast, that second space only one and a half metres across and three-quarters of a metre high. A third possible structure lies to the southwest of the central one, though it has collapsed almost entirely, its outline now only faintly legible at ground level. The complex was recorded and described by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, a landmark publication that catalogued the extraordinary density of prehistoric and early historic remains across this part of County Kerry. The grouping sits low on the ridge rather than at any commanding height, settled into the slope on what the survey describes as a level terrace, as if chosen for shelter rather than prospect.

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