Souterrain, Carrowshanbally, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Settlement Sites
Beneath a field in Carrowshanbally, County Galway, there is said to be a souterrain, an artificial underground passage or chamber typically built during the early medieval period, that has left no mark whatsoever on the surface above it.
No depression, no hollow, no tell-tale crop variation. The ground simply looks like ground.
What is known comes from local information rather than excavation or survey. The souterrain is believed to lie within the interior of a rath, a ringfort of the kind built across Ireland roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, usually as a defended farmstead for a single family or small community. Souterrains were commonly incorporated into such enclosures, serving variously as storage spaces, places of refuge, or escape routes. The rath at Carrowshanbally carries its own record as a separate monument. The souterrain inside it, for now at least, belongs more to local memory than to the archaeological record.
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