Hut site, Gleann Fán, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Gleann Fán, Co. Kerry

On the lower southern slopes of the Mount Eagle and Beennacouma ridge in County Kerry, a small cluster of drystone structures sits in open mountain terrain, known locally as Clochán Bán.

A clochán is a type of early Irish dry-stone beehive hut, built without mortar, and examples of the form are scattered across the Dingle Peninsula, though most attract far less attention than the famous beehive huts further along the Slea Head road. What makes this particular site quietly unusual is its arrangement: not a single freestanding cell but a combination of shapes connected by a passage, suggesting something more considered than a shepherd's casual shelter.

The main element is a roughly circular foundation about 3.5 metres in diameter, with an entrance on its north-western side leading into a rectangular drystone-built structure measuring approximately 2 by 1.5 metres internally. The walls survive to around 0.6 metres in height and are roughly 0.75 metres wide, giving a sense of the solidity these structures were built to. The archaeologist R.A.S. Macalister, writing in 1899, recorded a third circular structure, only 0.9 metres in diameter, positioned on the north side of the communicating passage between the two main elements. That small addition is easy to overlook but points to a more complex use of the space than the surviving stonework immediately suggests. The site was documented in detail by J. Cuppage as part of the Dingle Peninsula Archaeological Survey, published in 1986 under the Irish title Corca Dhuibhne, a systematic effort to catalogue the extraordinary concentration of early monuments across this part of west Kerry.

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