Souterrain, Kilpaddoge, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
In the interior of a bivallate rath near Kilpaddoge, a small cairn of stones roughly two metres square sits quietly in the grass, and according to the landowner it marks the entrance to something far older beneath the surface.
That something is a souterrain, an underground passage or chamber typically built during the early medieval period in Ireland, often used for storage or refuge, and frequently found in association with raths, the circular earthwork enclosures that once served as farmsteads across the Irish countryside.
The rath itself is of the bivallate type, meaning it carries two enclosing banks rather than the more common single ring. The oval inner area is defined by a well-preserved inner bank and fosse, the fosse being the ditch dug to provide material for the bank, while a second outer bank survives in a far more degraded state, barely distinguishable from the surrounding ground. The souterrain lies in the western sector of the interior, its presence suggested above ground only by that modest stone mound. This detail about the underground chamber comes from the landowner rather than from excavation, which means the full extent of whatever lies below remains unverified and, by extension, intriguing. The site was documented in C. Toal's North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995 by Brandon Press in association with FÁS.