Souterrain, Drombohilly, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Settlement Sites

Souterrain, Drombohilly, Co. Kerry

Some archaeological sites make their presence felt through dramatic stonework or carefully tended earthworks.

This one in Drombohilly, on a west-facing slope above a river valley in south-west Kerry, offers something rather different: nothing at all. The site is recorded as containing both a rath and a souterrain, yet neither leaves any visible trace on the ground today.

A rath is a circular earthen enclosure, typically dating to the early medieval period, used as a farmstead and defended by one or more banks and ditches. A souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage or chamber, often associated with such enclosures, thought to have served for storage, refuge, or both. At Drombohilly, the scholar B. Ó Ciobháin recorded both features at this location, the pasture sitting on elevated ground with a commanding view west over the valley below. Whether they were already faint when he visited, or have since been lost to agricultural activity, is not clear. What remains is essentially a GPS coordinate and a line in the inventory, pointing at a grassy slope that gives nothing away.

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