Souterrain

The National Monuments Service's description

This record refers to a souterrain found in the vicinity of Drumcliff in the mid 1800’s. A brief description was published by J. Allen French (1883-4, 483) titled ‘Note on a Souterraine at Drumcliffe, Co. Sligo’. He recorded that ‘It measures twelve feet long [3.65m], five feet high [1.5m], 6 feet in diameter [1.8m], and is composed of rough unhewn sand-stones, without mortar; the roof of large stones laid across.’
Within the souterrain he found a carved and decorated bone disc, possibly a gaming piece, and he noted ‘a quantity of charcoal lay on the floor, together with bones of marine and land animals’, and ‘minute pieces of iron were mixed with debris; and in one of the stones on the floor there were and a stone with depressions, which may have been used as moulds.’
He states that the souterrain was ‘on the Strand-road’, but provides no other useful details, bar surmising that ‘when making the road in 1847 the workmen must have come upon the opening.'
The Strand road, which is c. 100m W of the round tower (SL008-084003-), extends S from the N15 to the shoreline of Drumcliff Bay. According to local tradition, the souterrain was found in a field adjacent to the Church of Ireland rectory (per. comm. Leo Leyden, 2019). This suggests that it may be to W of the Strand road in Drumcliffe Glebe townland. However, there is now no visible trace of the souterrain, and its exact location remains unknown.

Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy

Date of upload: 12 December 2016

References

French J. Allen 1883-4 in Notes and queries. Note on a Souterraine at Drumcliffe, Co. Sligo. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquities of Ireland 16, 483.