Clochan, Com Dhíneol Thuaidh, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the northern slopes of Com Dhíneol on the Dingle Peninsula, there survives a record of something that may no longer survive at all.
In 1899, the archaeologist R. A. S. Macalister noted a ruined clochaun at this townland, a single line in a broader catalogue of early stone structures scattered across one of the most archaeologically dense peninsulas in Ireland. A clochaun, or clochán, is a dry-stone beehive hut, built without mortar, its corbelled walls drawing inward course by course until they meet at a rough apex. Thousands of years of this building tradition left their mark along the Atlantic seaboard, and the Dingle Peninsula holds a remarkable concentration of them, most famously on the slopes below Mount Brandon and along the coast toward Slea Head. This particular example, already ruined when Macalister visited, sits quietly in the documentary record, its physical state now unknown.