Souterrain, Na Gleannta Thuaidh, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Souterrain, Na Gleannta Thuaidh, Co. Kerry

On the lower western slopes of Ballysitteragh, in the rough, rocky pastureland of Na Gleannta Thuaidh in County Kerry, there is an underground passage that nobody can enter.

A small opening in the roof of a drystone-walled corridor offers a glimpse of what lies below, but the gap is too narrow for a person to pass through, and the passage itself closes off within a few metres in each direction, blocked by collapse. What survives is just enough to confirm that something is there, and not quite enough to know its full extent.

A souterrain is an artificially constructed underground passage or chamber, typically built during the early medieval period in Ireland, often associated with nearby settlement sites and used variously for storage, refuge, or both. This particular example lies within a small triangular field whose centre is taken up by a series of clearance cairns, the kind of loose stone mounds that accumulate over generations as farmers drag rocks from the soil to make the ground workable. The souterrain has become entangled with this agricultural history. The passage, recorded by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey, measures roughly half a metre wide and no more than 0.6 metres in height, roofed with flat slabs in the drystone tradition. It runs approximately two metres toward the north-northeast and one metre toward the south-southwest before collapsing into obstruction. At the south-eastern edge of one of the cairns, a second opening only about ten centimetres in diameter hints at a further passage or chamber beyond, still unexcavated and unconfirmed beneath the stones.

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