Clochan, Com Dhíneol Theas, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the western slopes of the ridge running from Mount Eagle to Slea Head, a small stone structure sits tucked against a natural rock outcrop, doing what it has apparently always done: keeping the weather out.
This is a clochan, a type of drystone beehive hut built without mortar using a corbelling technique, in which each course of stones projects slightly inward over the one below until the walls close to form a roof. Here, though, the builder took a practical shortcut, using five large flat slabs to complete the roof rather than corbelling all the way to the top. The slabs step upward from the entrance, which faces northeast, giving the whole structure a low, deliberate profile against the hillside.
The clochan is oval in plan, measuring roughly three metres by one point six metres, with drystone walls rising to about one point two metres before the roofing slabs take over. Outside the entrance there are possible traces of an enclosure or small courtyard, suggesting the structure may once have sat within a defined space rather than standing entirely alone on the slope. Clochans of this kind are found in some number across the Dingle Peninsula, and this example was recorded by J. Cuppage in the Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey published in 1986, which catalogued the extraordinary density of early and medieval remains across this stretch of west Kerry.