Souterrain, Lisrobin, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Souterrain, Lisrobin, Co. Cork

Within a ringfort in Lisrobin, north County Cork, there is a souterrain that can no longer be seen.

What survives instead is a record of its absence, or rather, of the hollow that once betrayed its presence. A souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage or chamber, typically associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland, used variously for storage, shelter, or refuge. In this case, even the hollow is gone.

In 1934, a researcher named Bowman noted a depression on the south side of the ringfort, roughly six yards across, and concluded it marked the site of a collapsed or buried souterrain beneath. That observation, recorded in published form, is now the primary evidence that anything was ever there. The ringfort itself, a circular enclosure of the kind built by farming communities across Ireland from roughly the sixth to the twelfth centuries, still exists at the site, but the depression Bowman described has left no visible surface trace. The souterrain, if it was intact when he visited, has since settled entirely into the ground, leaving nothing for the eye to catch.

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Pete F
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