The graveyard itself is thought to mark the location of the early ecclesiastical site of Culmaine, documented by historians Gwynn and Hadcock in 1970. Today, what appears to be an unremarkable hole in the front garden of a modern bungalow actually serves as the entrance to this remarkable subterranean complex.

Descending through the two-metre-wide opening, you’ll find yourself in a small, oval-shaped chamber built with drystone construction techniques. The chamber measures approximately 1.67 metres east to west and 2.74 metres north to south, with a maximum height of around three metres. Originally topped with a corbelled roof, much of this has since collapsed, leaving rubble partially filling the interior. At the base of the chamber’s south-southeastern wall, a small square opening, measuring just 65 centimetres wide and 50 centimetres high, serves as a creepway into the first of two interconnected passages.

This initial stone-lined passage extends 4.6 metres on a south-southeast to north-northwest axis, with walls that incline slightly inward as they rise to support a roof made of stone lintels. The passage reaches a maximum width of 1.4 metres and height of 1.34 metres, with a natural clay floor underfoot. At its far end, another cramped creepway, even smaller than the first at 58 centimetres wide and 55 centimetres high, leads to a second passage. This final section runs 5.3 metres long, though its southeastern end is now blocked with debris from its collapsed roof. These souterrains, as such underground structures are known, were likely used for storage or refuge during Ireland’s early medieval period, serving the religious community that once flourished at this site.