Souterrain, Aughris, Co. Sligo
Co. Sligo |
Settlement Sites
At Aughris in County Sligo, tucked against the inner face of a rath bank, a low opening leads into a small underground chamber that has quietly outlasted the settlement it once served.
A souterrain is an artificial underground passage or chamber, typically built during the early medieval period in Ireland and used for storage or concealment. This one, no more than two metres at its widest, is lined with drystone masonry and roofed with large flat lintels, the stones set without mortar yet holding their position for well over a thousand years.
The chamber sits within a rath, the earthen ringfort type that was the most common form of enclosed farmstead in early medieval Ireland, and it extends westward beneath the bank itself, which would have made it both structurally discreet and difficult to access from outside. What gives this particular souterrain an additional layer of interest is a piece of local tradition: according to information gathered from the community, a stone sculpture was recovered from inside the chamber. Stone sculptures found in such contexts are rare enough to attract attention, and the association raises questions about whether the figure was hidden there deliberately, deposited long after the souterrain's original construction, or simply lost to circumstance over the centuries. No further detail about the sculpture's form or current whereabouts is recorded alongside the site itself.