Souterrain, Meenahony, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Souterrain, Meenahony, Co. Cork

Inside a ringfort at Meenahony in County Cork, a stone-lined drain runs through the ground, exposed to the open air and waiting for someone to decide what it actually is.

It may be a souterrain, the term for an underground stone-built passage or chamber that early medieval communities in Ireland typically dug beneath or beside their enclosures, likely for cold storage or refuge. Or it may be something more prosaic. That ambiguity is, in its own way, the most interesting thing about it.

The feature was first noted by Hartnett in 1939, who recorded it simply as a drain cut through the centre of the ringfort. The ringfort itself, a roughly circular earthen or stone enclosure of the kind built across Ireland during the early medieval period, provides the immediate context. Hartnett's description was brief, and the question he left open has not been fully resolved since. The drain remains visible, its stone lining intact, neither confirmed as a souterrain nor dismissed as something lesser.

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Pete F
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