Hut site, Baile An Chnocáin, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Baile An Chnocáin, Co. Kerry

On the western slopes of Brandon Mountain in County Kerry, a small stone structure sits in open upland terrain, its entrance now blocked, its interior barely tall enough to stand in.

Known as Cloghaunnageragh or Clochán na gCaorach, the name translating roughly as "the stone hut of the sheep," it belongs to a tradition of corbelled drystone buildings found across the Dingle Peninsula and the broader Irish west. A clochán is constructed without mortar, its stones laid in overlapping courses that draw gradually inward until they meet at the top, forming a self-supporting roof of considerable ingenuity. This one is roughly oval in plan, measuring 2.8 by 2.5 metres internally and standing just 1.5 metres high, with two niches set into its walls and a lintelled entrance, now blocked, that was originally 0.9 metres high and between 0.45 and 0.75 metres wide.

What makes this site more than a lone shepherd's hut is the cluster of enclosures attached to it. A rectangular enclosure measuring 5.5 by 4 metres abuts the hut to the east, with a small square chamber of 1.5 metres built into its north-eastern corner. On the north-western side, a second enclosure, roughly 3.5 metres square, is joined to the hut, and a D-shaped chamber measuring 2 by 1.3 metres is set against its north-western wall. The arrangement suggests something more organised than casual seasonal shelter, though whether the enclosures held animals, stored equipment, or served some other purpose is not recorded. The site lies a little below and to the north of Loughs Eightragh and Oughteragh, in terrain that remains exposed and largely unaltered. It was documented by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey, a foundational study of the Corca Dhuibhne region.

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