Souterrain, Ballycarnahan, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Settlement Sites

Souterrain, Ballycarnahan, Co. Kerry

Just south of Caherdaniel on the east bank of the Coomnahorna river, there is almost nothing left to see.

A single large slab, possibly a roofing lintel, protrudes from the ground. It is the last visible trace of a souterrain, an underground stone-built passage of the kind constructed throughout early medieval Ireland, typically used for storage, refuge, or both, that was infilled some decades ago and never appeared on any Ordnance Survey map to begin with.

Before it was filled in, the souterrain was apparently worth the effort of entering. Local tradition, recorded by O'Connell under the Kerry Archaeological Society records, described a stone-built passage running roughly northeast to southwest, with several chambers roomy enough to stand upright in. That is not a given with these structures; many souterrains are low, narrow affairs requiring hands and knees. The dimensions suggest something relatively substantial was built here at some point in the early medieval period, carefully corbelled or lintelled in stone and then, at some later date, quietly buried again.

The site sits just outside Caherdaniel, a village on the southern coast of the Iveragh Peninsula. That the souterrain was never mapped officially, and survives now only as a fragment of stone and a fragment of local memory, is not unusual for this part of Kerry, where the density of early settlement has consistently outpaced formal documentation. The slab on the surface is easy to miss and easy to misread, which is perhaps part of what makes it worth knowing about.

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Pete F
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