Souterrain, Rossagh, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Souterrain, Rossagh, Co. Cork

In the townland of Rossagh in North Cork, there is an underground passage that no one can any longer find.

A souterrain, which is an artificial underground chamber or tunnel typically built during the early medieval period, often for storage or refuge, once lay beneath an enclosure that has since been levelled entirely flat. The enclosure itself is gone. The souterrain is gone, at least from the surface. Nothing visible remains to mark the spot.

The only clue to its existence comes from a 1910 reference by a writer named Jones, who noted "the opening to a cave" at the centre of what was then still a recognisable enclosure. That phrasing, a cave, suggests the entrance was visible and distinctive enough to catch attention more than a century ago. Since then, the enclosure has been levelled, presumably through agricultural clearance, and with it any surface trace of the souterrain's mouth has disappeared. The related enclosure is recorded separately, but equally as a site that has been all but erased from the landscape.

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Pete F
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