Souterrain, Knockreagh, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Souterrain, Knockreagh, Co. Kerry

In a field at Knockreagh in north Kerry, a small earthwork sits in a quiet state of semi-erasure.

It was recorded on the Ordnance Survey maps of 1841 to 1842 but had vanished from later editions, surviving cartographically only when aerial photography carried out by the Geological Survey of Ireland in 1974 brought it back into focus. What those photographs revealed was a univallate rath, meaning a ringfort enclosed by a single earthen bank and ditch, a form of enclosed farmstead common across early medieval Ireland. The interior sits at a slightly higher level than the surrounding ground, and the enclosing bank has been broken in several places by cattle over the years, leaving no clear original entrance.

Within the northern part of the interior, a slight rise in the ground has been interpreted as a possible souterrain. A souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage or chamber, typically associated with raths and used for storage or as a place of refuge. They are found in considerable numbers across Kerry and the wider country, though many remain unexcavated and some, like this one, are identified only by surface irregularities rather than confirmed by any dig. C. Toal's North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995, catalogued this site and noted the suggestive mound, while stopping short of confirming what lies beneath it. The site has not, on available evidence, been formally excavated, so the souterrain remains a possibility rather than a certainty.

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Pete F
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