Souterrain

The National Monuments Service's description

Marked only on the 1915 ed. of the OS 25-inch map where it is described in italic lettering as a 'Cave' and situated on a slight rise in a gently undulating landscape. It was described c. 1910 as a passage with drystone-built walls and a lintelled roof (OS Name Books). Excavation (94E0058) in advance of a cemetery extension revealed an underground lintelled chamber (dims 8.5m N-S; c. 2.5m E-W) with some lintels in place, which is connected at N to the W end of a second lintelled chamber (dims 7m E-W; 2.5m N-S) which may have had the original entrance at its SE corner. Both chambers were filled with earth and were not emptied. A furnace bottom and some slag was found at the souterrain entrance, suggesting that iron-working was conducted in the vicinity, but there was no evidence of an associated enclosure. The souterrain is excluded from the cemetery. (Lavelle 1994; 1995)

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of revised upload: 6 November 2018

References

Lavelle, D. 1995 Moore cemetery, Loughlackagh. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 1994: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 76-7. Bray. Wordwell.

OSNB 25-inch. Ordnance Survey Name Books compiled in the course of the 1:2500 survey of Ireland. National Archives of Ireland.

Lavelle, D. 1994 Excavation at Moore Cemetery, Loughlackagh, Co. Roscommon. Licence No. 98E0058. Unpublished report, Author