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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Souterrain

Rusheens West, County Mayo, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Souterrain, Rusheens West, County Mayo, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Rusheens West
County
Mayo
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Caves
Coordinates
53.89662, -8.67941
SMR number
MA073-011003-

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1857 · Ireland (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

Located in an ecclesiastical enclosure (MA073-011001-).
This souterrain is indicated on the 1919 OS 6-inch maps as ‘Caves’. In the SW quadrant of the enclosure, close to the enclosing wall, there is an opening (Wth 0.57m; H 0.47m) into the W end of a subterranean stone-built chamber (L 4m E-W; H c. 1.4m). The chamber is trapezoidal in plan, narrowing from a width of c. 2m at W to 1.3m at E. The walls are of drystone construction, well built with small and medium-sized stones. It is roofed with massive, overlapping slabs, supported by a course of corbels at the top of the side walls. The floor is covered with earth and loose stones. A low lintelled opening (Wth c. 0.6m), now blocked up, at floor level at the NE corner of the chamber may be a creep opening to N into another chamber or passage.
A ground surface, 4m to NE of the opening to the souterrain, there is a shallow hollow or surface subsidence (max. dim. 2m), which probably indicates a continuation of the souterrain in this direction.

Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy

Date of upload: 2 June 2021

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
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