Clochan, An Baile Breac, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Settlement Sites

Clochan, An Baile Breac, Co. Kerry

At An Baile Breac on the Dingle Peninsula, the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map records the outline of a circular clochan, a type of dry-stone beehive hut built without mortar, relying entirely on the careful overlapping of stones to form a corbelled, self-supporting roof.

These structures are closely associated with early Christian monastic settlement in the west of Ireland, and the Dingle Peninsula holds one of the densest concentrations of them anywhere in the country. That a clochan was noted here at the time of the nineteenth-century survey suggests the remains were visible enough to warrant marking, even if little else was recorded about them.

The site appears in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey compiled by J. Cuppage under the auspices of Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne, a survey that systematically catalogued the extraordinary density of archaeological remains across this corner of County Kerry. The circular form noted for this particular structure is consistent with the single-cell clochan type found throughout the peninsula, though without further detail it is difficult to say more about its date, condition, or any surviving fabric. The Ordnance Survey's first edition, produced in the mid-nineteenth century, captured many features that have since degraded or disappeared entirely, making such map notations sometimes the only surviving record of a structure's existence.

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