Souterrain, Ballydrum, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Settlement Sites
Beneath a raised area of ground inside a ringfort in Ballydrum, County Mayo, there may be a passage that nobody has properly seen in decades.
Two large stone slabs, set horizontally, protrude from the southern edge of an elevated section in the north-west quadrant of the enclosure, with several smaller stones emerging from the sod nearby. Around three metres to the north-west, the ground dips in a surface depression. Taken together, these features suggest the presence of a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber typically built during the early medieval period, often used for storage, refuge, or both.
The souterrain sits within a rath, the Irish term for a roughly circular earthen enclosure, usually dating from the early medieval period and associated with farmsteads of the time. Raths are common across the Irish landscape, but the features hinting at a subterranean structure within this one are less straightforward to read. When the site was inspected in 1997, the relevant area of the rath was partly obscured by field clearance debris, the kind of loose stone and material pushed aside when land is tidied for agricultural use. That obstruction meant the features could not be examined closely, and so the identification remains tentative. The slabs and the depression point in a particular direction without quite resolving into certainty.