What is recorded here

Thirty centuries of breath may still move through the stone ring at Baile Na Habha, though sheep now crowd the space where people once lived. The fort has given up most of its shape to a triangular pen and an unroofed house, yet two upright slabs still mark the entrance and a hidden passage may remain closed beneath the grass. What looks like ruin is probably adaptation, with old walls bent into new uses while the mountain keeps its secret.

Internal diam. c. 15m Situated on the lower W slopes of Brandon mountain. Only the bare outline of this circular cashel is now discernible. It was not noted on the OS maps though 2 sub-circular sheep-folds in the interior were marked on the 2nd edition. The outline of the NW arc of the enclosure is preserved as the NW wall of a large, triangular sheep-pen which now occupies the interior. The adjacent NE and SW portions of the enclosure wall lie outside the sheep-pen and are represented to NW by a low bank and to SW by an arc of the outer facing, 1.1m high. Two upright slabs set 1.75m apart in the thickness of this latter section probably mark the entrance. The E apex of the sheep-pen is interrupted by a rectangular house, unroofed but otherwise well-preserved, which post-dates the 2nd edition of the OS map. The SE arc of the cashel wall may have been removed to facilitate the construction of this house and the cultivation of the adjacent field. The sheep-folds shown on the OS map survive only as low mounds of stone, with some few sections of the outer wall faces still traceable. These may have been hut-sites originally associated with the cashel and later re-used as sheep-folds. Local information indicates the presence of a now inaccessible Man-made underground passage at the site. The above description is derived from J. Cuppage, ‘Corca Dhuibhne. Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey. Ballyferriter. Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne’ (1986), no. 545. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 7 August 2013

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