Souterrain, Behy More, Co. Mayo

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Souterrain, Behy More, Co. Mayo

Beneath a rath in Behy More, County Mayo, there may be a souterrain that nobody living has ever seen.

The ground gives nothing away. There is no depression, no hollow, no tell-tale disturbance in the grass to suggest that anything lies below. Whatever was once accessible has been deliberately sealed, and the surface has long since closed over it.

A souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage or chamber, typically associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland, and often found within or close to a rath, the circular earthwork enclosure that was the most common form of defended farmstead from roughly the sixth to the twelfth century. At Behy More, the rath itself is a recorded monument, and local tradition holds that a souterrain sits somewhere in its interior, most likely in the western half. The detail that sharpens the story is the phrase "about two generations ago", which places the infilling not in some remote or undocumented past but within living or near-living memory. Someone made a decision to fill it in, and the knowledge of that act has been passed down even as the physical evidence disappeared entirely.

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Pete F
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