Souterrain, Creggstown, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Settlement Sites
Beneath a wet, marshy field in Creggstown, County Westmeath, lies a souterrain that has managed to remain entirely invisible, not just to the casual observer but to every map-maker and aerial photographer who has ever looked for it.
A souterrain is an underground passage or chamber, typically stone-lined, built in early medieval Ireland for storage, refuge, or both. This one has left no trace whatsoever above ground.
The monument appears on no historical cartography. The Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1837 makes no mention of it, nor does the revised twenty-five-inch edition produced in 1913. When the site was examined in 1981, surveyors found no surface remains of any kind. More recently, aerial photography has confirmed the same: nothing. The souterrain sits roughly sixty metres north-west of a local pond, in ground that is described as wet and marshy, hemmed in by tillage and pasture. Whether it was deliberately concealed, simply collapsed and absorbed into the boggy soil over centuries, or was always too modest to leave a mark, is not recorded.