Souterrain, Kilmore, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On a gentle rise in Kilmore, Co. Kerry, the ground itself is the curiosity.
What looks at first like a low, curved bank of stones is the surviving remnant of a ringfort, and set within it are three stone-lined depressions, sunken and open to the sky, that mark the collapsed roof of an underground passage system. A souterrain, to use the proper term, is a man-made underground structure of dry-stone construction, typically associated with Early Medieval settlement in Ireland and thought to have served as a place of refuge, storage, or both. Here, the chambers are no longer intact overhead, but their outlines remain legible in the earth: three distinct spaces measuring roughly 4 by 2 metres, 3 by 3.4 metres, and 8 by 1.4 metres respectively. To the west of them sits an elongated mound, approximately 6 by 3 metres, whose relationship to the souterrain is not fully explained but which adds to the sense that this small rise once held considerably more than it now shows.
The site has a documented history of gradual disappearance. The Ordnance Survey map of 1841 to 1842 recorded it as a circular enclosure with a cave marked in the interior, which suggests the souterrain was at least partially visible or known locally at that time. By the revised edition of 1915 to 1916, the western section of the fort had already been levelled, reducing what was once a complete enclosure to the semi-circular bank that remains today. A trackway runs immediately to the west of the site, and its proximity may partly explain the erosion of that western arc. C. Toal's North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995, provides the most detailed available account of what survives, recording the chamber dimensions and noting the stone-lined nature of the depressions that mark the souterrain's collapse.