Souterrain, An Blascaod Mór, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the Great Blasket Island, a rectangular hollow in the ground beside an old hut site quietly suggests something more than simple erosion or collapse.
It may be the remains of a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber built in early medieval Ireland, typically for storage, refuge, or both. These structures were usually constructed by roofing over a trench with large slabs and then covering the whole with earth, leaving little visible from the surface beyond a subtle depression once the roof has gone. On an island already layered with the traces of successive human occupation, this particular hollow is easy to overlook.
The identification comes from J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, published under the title Corca Dhuibhne, which catalogued the dense concentration of early remains across this part of Kerry. An Blascaod Mór, the largest of the Blasket Islands, lies off the tip of the Dingle Peninsula and was permanently inhabited until the evacuation of its remaining population in 1953. Long before that final community, however, the island supported earlier settlement, and the hut site beside which this hollow sits belongs to that older, less documented layer of occupation. The souterrain, if that is indeed what the depression marks, would fit into a pattern found across early Christian Ireland, where such underground features were commonly attached to or positioned near domestic structures.