Souterrain, Lisduff, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Souterrain, Lisduff, Co. Kerry

At Lisduff in County Kerry, a ringfort contains a feature that almost escaped the record entirely.

A souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage typically associated with early medieval settlement and used for storage or refuge, appears in the floor plan published by Toal in 1995, mapped out within the interior of the enclosure. Yet the written description accompanying that same publication makes no mention of it whatsoever. The structure exists in the diagram but vanishes from the text, a small cartographic ghost.

The ringfort itself, recorded as KE014-011, is a monument of early medieval Ireland, and souterrains are a common though not always well-understood feature of such sites across the country. Their presence could indicate a concern with food preservation, security, or both. That this particular example was drawn but not described suggests either an oversight in the original write-up or some uncertainty about the feature at the time of survey. Either way, the site carries a preservation order dating to 1976, issued under the National Monuments Acts, which reflects its recognised archaeological significance regardless of the ambiguity surrounding the souterrain itself.

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