Souterrain, Lisnanroum, Co. Clare
Co. Clare |
Settlement Sites
On the 1920 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, someone marked the word 'Caves' beside a patch of rough pasture in Lisnanroum, County Clare.
It is a reasonable enough label for what lies there: a souterrain, the Irish-archaeological term for an underground stone-lined passage, typically built during the early medieval period as a place of refuge or cold storage beneath or beside a settlement. What the cartographer could not have known, or did not record, is the structural detail that makes this particular example quietly interesting.
The surviving section is L-shaped, running roughly southwest to northeast for about 4.6 metres before turning northward for a further 3.7 metres, where it ends in a rounded or pointed terminal. In the north-south arm, the roof lintels are still in place and actually project above the present ground surface, a feature noted by researcher Bowmer in 2019 as relatively unusual among rectilinear enclosures in the Burren. The passage here is narrow, under a metre wide, and between 0.9 and 1.2 metres high, with bare rock visible at the base and no corbelling, the technique of layering overhanging stones to create a vaulted ceiling. In the other arm, the lintels have collapsed inward and block the passage floor. Whatever lies further to the southwest is inaccessible, sealed by a fallen stone and leaving no trace on the surface above. The souterrain sits within a walled enclosure, with a hut site roughly thirteen metres to the southeast inside the same boundary, and a second souterrain about twenty-three metres to the south-southwest in an adjoining enclosure. The cluster suggests a settlement of some complexity, though its precise date and character remain unexcavated.
The site sits within a relict field system, meaning the landscape around it preserves traces of earlier agricultural organisation that have not been erased by later ploughing or development. The Burren is particularly good at holding onto such features; its thin soils and limestone karst have sheltered early structures that would not have survived elsewhere. Approaching from the south, the lintels of the intact section can apparently be seen breaking the surface of the pasture, which is an unusual way to encounter what is essentially an underground structure.