One of the most famous landmarks on the Dingle Peninsula. The Oratory is completely made of stone and some way it resembles an upturned boat. Various dates have been suggested for its construction but an exact date for same is not available although experts suggest it may have been constructed between the 9th and 12th centuries.
It was constructed of corbelled stone, a technique handed down, with only minor refinements, directly from the great passage tombs of the late Stone Age. From Newgrange(c. 3200 BCE) to a beehive hut, or clochán (c. 500 BCE), to the modern stone outbuildings of the Dingle Peninsula, the Irish have been building these remarkably long-lived structures—able to withstand a thousand years of Atlantic storms—by this technique. The stones are positioned on each course of the wall with their edges projecting inward by a small increment as the walls rise upward. Thus the walls curve together and meet at the top with large capstones. Each stone on the wall is laid at a slight angle, lower on the outside, so that water does not seep into the clochán. The small cell-like space inside Gallarus Oratory is approximately 4.8 metres (15 feet) by 3 metres (10 feet).