What is recorded here

Clochan in Baile Na Habha holds four drystone huts buried beneath a collapse mound on the most inaccessible terrace in mainland Corca Dhuibhne. Tradition credits St. Brendan with founding a monastery there before his sea voyage, yet the valley still contained several families at the start of the 19th century. The huts remain conjoined and broken, preserving neither a clear monastic boundary nor a domestic one, but a place where devotion, survival and forgetting all crowded the same narrow stone shelf.

Fohernamanagh/Fothair na Manach: The ecclesiastical nature of this settlement (KE025-001001-) is only indirectly suggested by its name and by its traditional association with St. Brendan. He is said both to have founded a monastery here (O'Donoghue 1895, 327-8) and to have sojourned here for a while before embarking on his legendary sea voyage (An Seabhac 1939, 132). Its remote location (it is undoubtedly the most inaccessible settlement on mainland Corca Dhuibhne) also suggests a monastic settlement. However, despite its isolation and the difficulty of access, the valley is reputed to have been occupied at the beginning of the 19th century by 3 or 4 families (Power 1923, 75-6), and it is not clear to what extent the present form of the settlement is attributable to this recent occupation. The NW half of the relatively level terrace to NE of the enclosure is occupied by a mound of collapse which incorporates the remains of at least 4 drystone clochauns (KE025-001003-, KE025-001008-; KE025-001009-; KE025-001010-), 3 of which appear to have been conjoined. Of the easternmost hut (KE025-001003-) only a single course of the E half of the wall is visible above the collapse. The above description is derived from J. Cuppage, ‘Corca Dhuibhne. Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey. Ballyferriter. Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne’ (1986), no. 826. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 8 August 2013

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