Souterrain, Moneen, Co. Galway

Co. Galway |

Settlement Sites

Souterrain, Moneen, Co. Galway

In the flat pastureland of Moneen, County Galway, there is supposed to be a cave.

Or there was, at least according to a cartographer who thought it worth marking. The 1921 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map records the spot with the word "Cave" written in Roman script, the convention used for antiquities and features of note. Today, no visible surface trace survives. Whatever was once there, or whatever was once believed to be there, has either collapsed, been obscured, or simply faded from the land without ceremony.

The site is tentatively identified as a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber typically associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland, often built to serve as a place of cold storage or refuge. They are generally difficult to detect without excavation, and many survive only as slight depressions or are known solely from historical references. In this case, even the depression appears to be gone. The map entry is the only evidence, a small act of documentation by a surveyor who recorded something that locals presumably knew about, and which has since been lost to view. Whether the original feature was ever a true souterrain, or something else entirely, remains an open question.

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Pete F
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