Souterrain at Muirhevnamore, Marshes Upper, Dundalk

County Louth Archaeological and History Society

Souterrain at Muirhevnamore, Marshes Upper, DundalkAuthor(s): Kieran CampbellSource: Journal of the County Louth Archaeological and Historical Society, Vol. 25, No. 2(2002), pp. 202-207Published by: County Louth Archaeological and History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27729908 .

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Souterrain at Muirhevnamore, Marshes Upper, Dundalk

By Kieran Campbell

INTRODUCTION

The souterrain was discovered on 11 April 1995 during construction of a basketball court at

Scoil Cr?ost R? M?inteoir?, Muirhevnamore, Dundalk, by building contractors, Murnaghan

Brothers Ltd., Ballybay, Co Monaghan. A site inspection was made on 13 April by the present

writer and Mr Noel Ross, following which the souterrain was closed up for the duration of the

Easter holiday. The souterrain was reopened

on 24 April and surveyed by the writer, assisted by

Mr Colm O'Brien. On completion of the survey the entrance was sealed up with loose stone fill

and the souterrain has been preserved intact under the basketball court. In 1996 the site was

designated as Recorded Monument LH007-092 in the Record of Monuments and Places: County

Louth issued by the National Monuments and Historic Properties Service, then of the Office of

Public Works.

The souterrain is located in the townland of Marshes Upper, barony of Upper Dundalk (Fig.

1; O.S. six-inch sheet Louth 7, 468mm from W, 129mm from S; National Grid co-ordinates 30613

30551). The site is on the northern slope of a low eminence which is indicated on the 1:50,000

O.S. Discovery Series map (sheet 36) as a small circle defined by the 10m contour. Housing and

commercial developments have taken place to the north and east of the site but much open

ground remains within the church grounds to the south. The field to the west is now set out in

allotments (Fig. 2). Before the discovery of the souterrain an estimated depth of 0.8m of topsoil and subsoil had

been stripped from the 31m by 18m area of the ball court and a hardcore surface had been laid

down and rolled. An examination of the section face along the south side of the ball court and

the open foundation trenches for the school building, 35m to the east of the souterrain site,

revealed no further evidence of archaeological features.

The Souterrain (Fig. 3; Plates 1,2): The portion of the souterrain available for examination was

aligned north-south and had a total length of 10.1m. The souterrain consisted of two passages,

one at a higher level than the other, which were connected by

a trapdoor

or 'drop hole'. Access

to the souterrain was through

a hole in the roof at the end of the upper passage, caused by the

removal of a capstone during the site clearance work. The modern entrance was directly above

the drop-hole entry to the lower passage. The upper passage, now blocked by collapse, would

have led to the original entrance located at an unknown distance to the south, probably in the

grounds of the adjacent church and presbytery. The lower passage is the original end passage

and terminus of the souterrain.

The Upper Passage: The accessible portion of the upper passage was 1.9m long and had two intact

capstones, a third having been removed in the recent disturbance. Progress to the south was

blocked by a clay fill spilling from roof level, caused either by collapse or by deliberate infilling of

the souterrain in the past. The passage was 0.75m high and was 0.95m wide at floor level

narrowing to 0.6m at roof level. In the end wall of the passage there was an air vent

(Fig. 3: A-Al

and B-Bl) which measured 0.4m x 0.15m at its opening into the upper passage and extended

north for 1.25m before being blocked by soil. The end wall rested on the lintels at the start of the

lower passage. The drop hole in the floor at the end of the upper passage measured 0.6m x 0.4m,

with a fall of 0.7m to the floor level of the lower passage.

202



Souterrain at Muirhevnamore 203

Fig. 1. Location of souterrain and other sites in Marshes Upper townland.

I 46 i- ,-;

Fig. 2. Location of souterrain in the modern streetscape.



204 County Louth Archaeological and Historical Journal

Fig. 3. Plan and sections of Muirhevnamoie souterrain.

The Lower Passage: Entry into the lower passage proper from the drop hole was restricted by a low

lintel positioned at a height of 0.55m above the floor. Beyond the opening into the lower

passage, which measured 0.55m high by 0.9m wide, the roof rose sharply. However, access was

made difficult by the presence of a large quantity of limestone chippings brought in by children

evidently with the intention of flooring the souterrain following its recent discovery, a

job that

was not completed. The chippings lay piled to a height of 0.45m at the beginning of the lower

passage.

The total length of the lower passage, including the drop-hole space, was 9.4m. The passage

ran due north and was 1.45m high, with a width of lm at floor level and 0.5m on average at roof

level. A broadening of the passage approximately 3.5m from the north end, together with a slight

curve to the west, formed a chamber area with a maximum width of 1.75m. There was little

variation in the roof height over most of the passage length.




> -*W.

Plate 1. View from above showing modern access into upper passage of souterrain, and trap-door to lower passage. Scale = 2m.

Plate 2. View from chamber area at north end of lower passage, looking towards trap-door. Scale = lm.



206 County Louth Archaeological and Historical Journal

In general the souterrain was built using field stones or stones recovered from the subsoil,

rather than quarried stones. Several plough-marked stones were used in the construction. In a

limited number of places, mostly in the chamber, large boulders formed the base course of the

side walls. The base course at the beginning of the lower passage was obscured by the chippings

and consequently the dry-stone walling in this area is indicated by a dashed line on the plan. The

souterrain appears to have been built in a trench cut into glacial till as no bedrock outcrop was

observed in the floor of the passage or at the base of the walls. The basal 0.2m of the curving end

wall of the chamber was formed by a shelf of natural glacial till.

The floor in the chamber area at the end of the souterrain, well trampled by the time of the

survey, appeared to be formed of clay, possibly natural till, and was strewn with recently-intro

duced debris of all sorts. The writer was informed that the depression in the floor of the chamber

('pit' on cross-section A-Al) was

present when the souterrain was first opened.

Discussion: At the time of its discovery the souterrain at Scoil Cr?ost Ri was the tenth example to

have been discovered in the townland since 1980, all found during preparatory groundwork for

various developments (Fig. 1). Marshes Upper sites 1 and 2, two souterrains (LH007-80 and

LH007-81), both apparently unenclosed, were excavated by Gosling in 1980-1 (Gosling 1989-90,

76). At sites 3 and 4 a complex of five souterrains and two

adjoining enclosures (LH007-120) was

excavated by Gowen in 1982 (Gowen 1992). Also in 1982, site 5, a partially-destroyed souterrain

within a large enclosure (LH007-107), situated on a knoll close to the present site, was recorded

in a salvage excavation (McCormick and Crone 2000). A souterrain (LH007-091) uncovered

during landscaping on the pitch and putt course west of the present site was

surveyed by the

National Monuments Service in 1987 (Buckley and Sweetman 1991, 129). To these must now be

added a further souterrain discovered in 2002 during archaeological monitoring in the grounds

of the Dundalk Institute of Technology (Mossop 2002). Evidence recovered in the excavations

dated the sites to between the seventh and the twelfth centuries, when all would have occupied

low hills on the fringe of an extensive salt marsh on the shore of Dundalk Bay (Gosling 1991, Fig. 5).

Although incomplete, the Muirhevnamore souterrain has a number of features which can

readily be paralleled in other souterrains in the townland and in the wider north Louth area.

The most obvious of these is the trap-door or

'drop hole', which is found also in souterrain B,

Marshes Upper 3 and in nearby site LH007-091 on the pitch and putt course. The wall slots

associated with the trap-doors at Marshes Upper 3 and in the recently excavated souterrain at

Farrandreg were not present in this case (Gowen 1992, 70; Murphy 1998, 269). In Ireland the

trap-door feature is restricted to a western and a north-eastern group, with this example

conforming to Clinton's class A, the dominant form in souterrains found in counties Louth,

Meath and Down (Clinton 2001, 126; Figs. 41, 45). This class refers to trap-doors which must be

closed from the outside and Clinton contends that their function was to secure for protection

valuable materials, possibly including slaves, rather than to act as a defensive barrier against an

aggressor (ibid. 132). The lack of a clear differentiation between the passage and chamber, the

latter being marked merely by a

gradual widening of the passage, is mirrored in several souter

rains at Marshes Upper sites 3 and 4, and at Farrandreg. Similarly, the placing of the air vent in

the end wall of a passage is found also in the two souterrains at Marshes Upper site 3.

Due to the circumstances of its discovery it is not possible

to say if the Muirhevnamore souter

rain has an associated enclosure. Three of the five sites previously excavated in the townland had

enclosing ditches. The souterrain lies just 210m from the north-west circuit of the large

enclosure at Marshes Upper site 5, which the excavators suggest may have been an ecclesiastical

settlement, and may have been associated with it. The possibility remains that the site was

enclosed, bearing in mind that the enclosures at sites 3 and 4 were a mere 50m apart.




BIBLIOGRAPHY

Buckley, V.M. and 1991

Sweetman, P.D.

Clinton, M. 2001

Gosling, P. 1982

Gosling, P. 1989-90

Gosling, P. 1991

Gowen, M. 1992

McCormick, F. and 2000

Crone, F. J.

Mossop, M. 2002

Archaeological Survey of County Louth, Dublin.

The Souterrains of Ireland, Bray.

A Survey and Report on the Archaeology of the Town and

District, 3 vols., Dundalk.

'Marshes Upper: Early Christian settlement' in C. Manning

and D. Hurl (eds), 'Excavations Bulletin 1980-84: Summary

Account of Archaeological Excavations in Ireland', 76,

Journal of Irish Archaeology, v, 65-80.

'From Dun Delca to Dundalk: the topography and

archaeology of a medieval frontier town AD c. 1187

1700', C.L.A.H.J, xxii, 3, 217-353.

'Excavation of two souterrain complexes at Marshes

Upper, Dundalk, Co. Louth', PRIA, 92C, 55-121.

'A Destroyed Enclosure at Site 5, Marshes Upper,

County Louth', C.L.A.H.J., xxiv, 4, 553-62.

Report on the Archaeological Monitoring and Investigation at

Dundalk Institute of Technology. Report prepared by ACS Ltd.

submitted to Duchas, The Heritage Service.

Murphy, D. 1998 'Archaeological Excavation of a Souterrain at Farrandreg,

Dundalk, County Louth', C.L.A.H.J, xxiv, 2, 261-80.



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Souterrain at Muirhevnamore, Marshes Upper, Dundalk