Sheep's Head Way 8: Kilcrohane to Ahakista

Another beautiful day. I popped into school briefly to wish Hannah a happy birthday and was regaled with paninis and cake. All is calm and flourishing with 31 children on role - when I arrive there was only 19.
Back home and we took  advantage of the good weather to do the next bit of the Walk, starting in Kilcrohane village and then going down to the lake we went with Bob20 the other day, up onto the cliffs and back to Ahakista along an old green track, the original road between the two villages.
We saw:
three white horses standing in the ford we needed to get across - fortunately they were bribed with apples I had in my backpack
swans, egrets and ducks in the lake and a family huddle of swans and cygnets on the bank
three alpacas
an amazing light on the water
the remains of  a bardic school high up  on the cliffs
lots of large cattle
a small holy well with very fresh clear water
swathes of rust coloured bracken
and this extraordinary object!
A curiosity, built onto a wall, there's seems to a similar  now roofless arangement to the left. It is well built with drystone walling, has little steps going down into a rectangular space. The turf roof remains. I  have consulted my Atlas of the Rural Irish Landscape ( a wonderful book) and am wondering if it might be a sweat lodge! Very exciting if it is for this is what the Atlas has to say about them:
Sweat lodges were the Irish equivalent of the Turkish bath or Finnish sauna.  The heat treatment they provided was much esteemed by rural people, suffering from rheumatism, sciatica and arthritis inflicted by their wet outdoors life.  Sweat houses were small drystoned structures with low, lintelled doorways. Turf fires were lit in the sweat lodge.  The ashes were  then raked, the floor swept and green rushes, grass or straw was spread thickly over it. People sat inside, naked, and sweated profusely, before cooling themselves in an adjacent stream or lake.
Seems to fit the bill and how tempting that sounds, especially as I've just braved another swim!
Three White Horses

Edit: a link sent in by a friend who knows about these things - she reckons it is a sweat lodge!!