Souterrain, Freemount, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Souterrain, Freemount, Co. Cork

Beneath the overgrown interior of a ringfort near Freemount in north Cork, there is supposed to be a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber typically associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland, used for storage, refuge, or both.

The trouble is that nobody visiting today would have much hope of finding it. The site is heavily overgrown, and no surface trace of the souterrain remains visible.

What little is known comes from a single observation made by Bowman in 1934, who recorded that a souterrain lay in the north-east of the fort. The ringfort itself, a roughly circular enclosed settlement of the kind common across early medieval Ireland, survives as a separate monument on the same ground. The souterrain's association with it follows a pattern seen widely elsewhere in the country, where such underground features were cut or built within or close to the enclosing bank and ditch of a rath. Beyond Bowman's brief note, no further detail about the souterrain's construction, extent, or current condition appears to have been recorded.

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Pete F
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