Barrow, Scarriff, Co. Kerry

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Barrow, Scarriff, Co. Kerry

On the south bank of the Inny river in County Kerry, a low earthen mound sits quietly on a level flood plain, unremarkable at first glance but carrying a persistent local rumour: somewhere beneath it, tradition holds, runs an underground passage.

The mound is known as Knockaunbaun, and it is the kind of site that rewards a second look.

The mound is suboval in shape, roughly eleven metres long and about two metres high, oriented on a north-south axis and composed, as far as can be determined, entirely of earth and gravel. Its modest dimensions place it in ambiguous territory. It could be a burial mound of prehistoric origin, a natural glacial feature shaped by the flood plain on which it sits, or something else entirely. The reported souterrain, an underground passage of the type often built in early medieval Ireland as a place of refuge or storage, has not been formally investigated, and local memory of such passages tends to cluster around sites with genuinely ancient origins. Whether Knockaunbaun conceals one remains an open question.

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Pete F
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