Souterrain, Áth An Charbaill, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Souterrain, Áth An Charbaill, Co. Kerry

Sometimes the most telling thing about an archaeological site is what is no longer there.

At Lissonenakilla, known in Irish as Lios an Anacail, a roughly oval cashel, a type of early medieval stone-walled enclosure typically used to protect a farmstead or settlement, sits on a north-facing slope above the Lispole valley in County Kerry. The site is recorded alongside a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber that would once have served for storage or concealment. The problem is that nobody can find it.

The souterrain appears in the Ordnance Survey Name Books, a set of nineteenth-century field records compiled during Ireland's first systematic mapping project, which noted its existence in the townland of Kinard. By the time archaeologist J. Cuppage surveyed the Dingle Peninsula for the Corca Dhuibhne Archaeological Survey, published in 1986, no visible trace of the underground structure remained. It may have collapsed, been deliberately filled in, or simply been swallowed gradually by the surrounding ground. The cashel itself survives on the hillside, looking out over the valley, but the souterrain it once sheltered has effectively vanished from the landscape, leaving behind only its name in a record.

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