Clochan, Gleann Fán, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the southern slopes of Mount Eagle, on a rocky terrace above Gleann Fán, a cluster of four early stone huts sits in rough pastureland in a state of partial survival.
Known as Clochán Scológ, the group belongs to a tradition of corbelled drystone construction that is particularly dense on the Dingle Peninsula, where early Christian-era hermits and farmers alike built small beehive-shaped shelters without mortar, stacking stone so that each course slightly overhangs the one below until the walls meet at the top. What makes this particular group worth attention is less its fame than its layout: not a single hut but a small, interconnected complex, the individual cells arranged in ways that suggest deliberate planning rather than casual accumulation.
Two of the four structures survive in reasonably good condition, aligned on a north-south axis. The southern hut is oval in plan, its walls standing to around 2.2 metres, with a lintelled entrance to the east that is now blocked. A passageway roughly 3.75 metres long, formed by upright slabs set on edge, approaches this entrance from the east, a feature that would have controlled both access and, presumably, draughts. The northern hut connects to it internally via a second lintelled passage from the south, making the two rooms a linked unit. It is roughly D-shaped and stands somewhat lower, at about 1.3 metres. At its south-east corner there is a collapsed recess that the archaeologist R. A. S. Macalister, writing in 1899, recorded as a narrow chamber measuring roughly 1.45 by 0.45 metres. Whether it was a storage recess or a secondary entrance passage to the outside remains an open question. The two remaining structures are reduced to foundations only, one measuring roughly 2.3 by 3.6 metres and the other nearly 4 by 5.25 metres, with their external entrance on the western side. Taken together, the four form an unusual conjoined arrangement, the two ruined foundations attached to the north hut but not opening into it, which raises questions about their sequence of construction and use that the physical evidence alone cannot settle.