Souterrain, Clashmelcon, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On a gently northward-sloping pasture at Clashmelcon in north Kerry, a sub-circular enclosure holds a quiet puzzle in its western interior: two shallow depressions in the ground that are almost certainly the collapsed roof chambers of a souterrain.
A souterrain is an underground passage or chamber, typically stone-lined, built during the early medieval period and associated with ringforts or similar enclosed settlements. They served various purposes, including storage, refuge, and ventilation, and are found across Ireland in considerable numbers. Here, the larger of the two hollows measures roughly 2.2 metres north to south and 2.6 metres east to west, sitting within a raised area about 0.8 metres high. A second, smaller depression lies around 2.6 metres to the northwest, tucked within the enclosing bank of the cahir, the Irish term for a stone-built ringfort or fortified enclosure.
What makes this site particularly interesting is its early cartographic footprint. The Ordnance Survey maps of 1841 to 1842 mark the spot with the word 'Cave', suggesting that local knowledge of an underground feature was already well established before any formal archaeological attention arrived. By the time C. Toal documented the site in the North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995, the chambers had long since subsided, leaving only the tell-tale depressions that betray the outline of what once lay beneath. The enclosure itself, catalogued alongside the souterrain, sits within the broader landscape of early medieval settlement activity that characterises much of north Kerry, where ringforts and their associated underground structures survive in varying states of preservation across farmland that has been in continuous use for centuries.