Clochan, Gleann Fán, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
In a valley on the Dingle Peninsula, three small stone cells sit joined together in a cluster, each one circular and built without mortar, their corbelled walls narrowing inward to a close at the top.
These are clochans, the dry-stone beehive huts associated with early Christian monasticism in Ireland, and what makes this particular group quietly arresting is the way the three cells interlock, sharing walls and forming a single conjoined structure rather than standing as isolated units.
The three chambers measure 1.8, 1.4, and 3 metres in diameter respectively, a modest scale that nonetheless speaks to the careful economy of early medieval construction in this part of Munster. The site sits in Gleann Fán, a valley in the Corca Dhuibhne region of west Kerry, an area so dense with early ecclesiastical and prehistoric remains that it has been the subject of sustained archaeological attention. R. A. S. Macalister noted this cluster as far back as 1899, and the record was revisited as part of the Dingle Peninsula Archaeological Survey published in 1986 under the direction of J. Cuppage. The corbelling technique used in clochans, in which rings of flat stones are laid in overlapping courses that gradually reduce the internal diameter until the gap can be capped by a single stone, produces a structure of considerable durability; many examples across the Dingle Peninsula have survived more or less intact for well over a thousand years.