Dingle Peninsula - Ireland 2014 - page 380

this site is unexcavated, recent digging has shown that people have lived on this peninsula
since well before 4000 B.C.
11.7 km: Look ahead up Mount Eagle at the patchwork of stone-fenced fields.
12.5 km: Dunbeg Fort, a series of defensive ramparts and ditches around a central
clochan, isopentotourists.Coastalerosionwillsomedaysenditslidingintothesea.There
are no carvings to be seen, but the small (beg) fort (dun) is dramatic (€3, daily 9:00-19:00,
May-Aug until 20:00, descriptive handout, includes 10-minute video shown in the modern
stone house across the street, giving a bigger picture of the prehistory of the peninsula).
Forts like this are the most important relics left from Ireland's Iron Age (500 B.C. - A.D.
500).
Along the road, you'll see a newer stone-roofed house built to blend in with the land-
scape and the region's ancient rock-slab architecture ( A.D. 2000). It's the Stone House, a
friendly restaurant with an adjacent visitors center where you can see the film mentioned
above. A traditional currach boat is permanently dry-docked in the parking lot.
12.6 km: Roughly 50 yards up the hill is a thatched cottage abandoned by a family
named Kavanaugh 165 years ago, during the famine. With a few rusty and chipped old ar-
tifacts and good descriptions, it offers an evocative peek into the simple lifestyles of the
area in the 19th century (€3, family-€10, May-Oct daily 10:00-17:00, closed Nov-April,
tel. [phone], mobile [phone]).
13.4 km: A group of beehive huts (clochans), is a short walk uphill (€2, daily
9:30-19:00, WC). These mysterious stone igloos, which cluster together within a circular
wall, are a better sight than the similar group of beehive huts a mile down the road. Look
over the water for more Skellig views.