At Rathruane More in County Cork, local tradition holds that a souterrain lies within a ringfort, yet the ground gives nothing away. No hollow, no depression, no tumbled stonework marks the spot. The souterrain exists, for now at least, entirely in memory and record rather than in any visible form.

A souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage or chamber, typically associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland, and generally thought to have served for storage, refuge, or both. They are commonly found in conjunction with ringforts, the circular enclosed farmsteads that dot the Irish countryside in their thousands and date broadly from the early medieval period. That a souterrain should be paired with the ringfort at Rathruane More fits a well-established pattern. What is less common is the complete absence of any surface trace, leaving the tradition hanging without physical corroboration. Whether the passage has collapsed inward and been absorbed into the soil over centuries, or whether it survives intact beneath the surface, is simply not known.