Hut site, Gleann Fán, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Gleann Fán, Co. Kerry

On the south-eastern slopes of the Beennacouma and Mount Eagle ridge in Gleann Fán, a cluster of low stone structures sits quietly in rough mountain pasture, largely unnoticed by those who pass through the Dingle Peninsula.

Known as Clochán Dréimide, the site centres on two conjoined clocháns, the beehive-shaped dry-stone huts associated with early Christian and medieval Kerry, built without mortar and relying entirely on the careful corbelling of local stone to hold their shape. What makes this particular grouping slightly unusual is the arrangement: the two structures are connected internally by a communicating passage, with an entrance opening from outside at the south-east side of the southern hut.

The two main structures are modest in scale, measuring roughly 2.3 metres and 2.5 by 1.1 metres across, and stand only about a metre high today. A little further downhill, the partial remains of a D-shaped dry-stone chamber survive, and additional ruined structures cluster against an old field wall roughly ten metres to the west. Taken together, the grouping suggests a small working or habitation complex rather than a single isolated cell, though the precise date and function of the site have not been firmly established. The landscape they occupy, steep mountain pasture on a prominent ridge overlooking the Dingle Peninsula, is itself a reminder that early inhabitants of this part of Kerry were comfortable building and working at considerable elevation. The site was documented by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the peninsula, the most thorough systematic record of the area's extraordinary density of ancient remains.

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