Souterrain, Killeen, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Settlement Sites
On the western slope of a rath near Killeen in County Mayo, large stone slabs are slowly tipping into a hole in the earth.
The collapse is roughly a metre across, and the slabs appear to be the displaced roof lintels of a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber built during the early medieval period, typically used for storage or as a place of refuge. What makes this particular example quietly compelling is how much of it seems to remain hidden beneath the surface, readable only as a series of depressions and protruding stones scattered across the interior of the enclosure.
The rath itself, a circular earthen enclosure of the kind commonly associated with early medieval farmsteads in Ireland, provides the context for the souterrain. The underground structure appears to run eastward from the collapsed western entry point into the rath interior. Around six metres to the east of the initial collapse, a further surface depression measuring roughly two metres east to west and one and a half metres north to south, with a depth of about thirty centimetres, marks another point along what may be the same passage. A further irregular depression lies approximately two metres to the north-north-west of that. Together, these three disturbances in the ground suggest a souterrain of some length, its roof now failing at intervals, the stones that once formed its ceiling gradually subsiding into the void below.