Souterrain, Bawnfune, Co. Waterford

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Settlement Sites

Souterrain, Bawnfune, Co. Waterford

Near the top of a west-facing slope on Bawnfune Hill in County Waterford, there is a souterrain that almost nobody will ever see. A souterrain is a man-made underground passage or chamber, typically constructed during the early medieval period in Ireland, often used for storage, refuge, or both. This particular one came to light not through excavation or deliberate investigation, but because the ground above it simply gave way in 1992. By the time anyone could properly examine it, the decision had already been made to backfill the cavity, and so the structure was sealed again before any formal archaeological recording could take place.

What survives in local description is a sense of something surprisingly considered in its construction. The souterrain apparently comprised two oval chambers, each roughly three metres by two metres and standing about one and a half metres high, along with a smaller circular chamber. These spaces were linked by creeps, the narrow, low connecting passages that required a person to crouch or crawl between chambers, a feature common to souterrains across Ireland and one that would have made the interior difficult to move through quickly, perhaps deliberately so. The overall layout suggests a structure of some complexity, even if its precise date and the context of the settlement it once served remain unknown.

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