Souterrain, Skahanagh More, Co. Cork

Co. Cork |

Settlement Sites

Souterrain, Skahanagh More, Co. Cork

In a rush-choked, waterlogged hollow in Skahanagh More, there are flooded underground chambers that may no longer have a visible way in.

That combination of inaccessibility and uncertainty gives this particular souterrain, a type of man-made underground passage typically associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland, an unusually elusive quality even by the standards of sites that spend most of their existence beneath the ground.

In 1998, a researcher named Myler recorded a roughly circular opening, about half a metre in diameter, leading down into submerged chambers that extended in two directions, to the southwest and to the east. The site lies approximately 120 metres west of a cashel, the remains of a stone-walled ringfort, which suggests the souterrain was likely part of the same early settlement complex. Souterrains of this kind were used variously for storage, refuge, or both, and their association with cashels is well established across Munster. When the site was revisited in 2005, however, the entrance could not be located at all. Whether it had collapsed, been obscured by the encroaching vegetation, or simply proved impossible to find in the dense rush growth of the hollow is not recorded.

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