13th century Irish countryside tunnels (with pics)

Urban exploration outside of the Ozarks area
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PANIC! on the Titanic
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13th century Irish countryside tunnels (with pics)

Post by PANIC! on the Titanic »

Okay, so I rarely frequent this section of the forums, I've maybe browsed once or twice my whole time being a member of UO. However, I am out of the ozarks and thus into researching cool stuff in my current abode, here in Cork Ireland!

Okay I'm a bit outside of Cork, in the countryside where there isn't much to see. However, coming back from the supermarket, a tower out in a cow field caught my eye. I asked my host what that was, but being French, he didn't know (despite living by it) and didn't give a shit. So it was up to me to figure that out. More on the tower later.

So I was researching Cork urbex, hoping to find something. There's surprisingly little, but I came across the term 'souterrain,' a french word for underground tunnels, and learned that County Cork is riddled with them. Interesting. So I browsed around for a few examples and found one that had been investigated close to where I am staying and..oh what's this? It's next to that tower I saw a few days earlier!

I dug up an academic paper on an archaeological expedition on the tunnels and decided I have to investigate, especially since it's only a half hour walk from the house!

So the lady and I made our way to the field, to the tower, and in short time we found a tiny hole in the ground under some bushes in the side of a large hill which led to these tunnels. The tunnel system is a series of 7 chambers each separated by a tiny crawl hole, each between a foot and a 1.5 feet in length/width. So, small. Here's some photos documenting what we found:


Detailed map of the tunnels, made by the archaeological team in 2003.
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Entrance to the tunnels, which was quite a squeeze.
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Looking back out of once inside the first chamber
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Crawl hole directly opposite direction from previous picture (entrance to chamber #2)
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Mrs. Panic in Chamber #2, showing some sense of scale of the rooms and crawlways.
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Chamber #3, with ledges either for sitting or holding candles
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Chamber #5 had an interesting vaulted ceiling, different from the ceilings of the other chambers.
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The tower that originally caught my eye
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Inside the tower
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Background and Explanation

So in the year 1207, the place above the tunnels where the tower now stands was a castle site. That castle was sacked and burned in 1261 by some asshole named Finghin MacCarthy. Then another castle was built on the site in the mid 15th century which sat around for some time, what happened to it I don't know, but the remains of neither are seen today. Probably because a douche named Charles Beamish owned the land in the 1800's and destroyed any ruins found on it, including a cemetery and mid 15th century church. He built a tower, called the Beamish Mausoleum (the tower we see today) and from all accounts was buried there in 1867 (locals say he was buried standing up). Sucks for him: now it's a site for cows to go shit all over the floor, thus his grave.

The paper gives no strong conclusion as to the use and time period of the souterrains, but gives a compelling argument, given the style and interior features, that it may have been used as an escape tunnel for the 1207 castle. Evidence includes the use of crawlways to limit mobility and require both hands to get through, with niches in walls near the crawlways where one could lurk and neutralize any threat, now unarmed, trying to get through. It is typical of a 13th century refuge souterrain by all aspects.

Whatever it was used for, it was pretty freaking cool.
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SubLunar
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RE: 13th century Irish countryside tunnels (with pics)

Post by SubLunar »

You dirty son of a bitch.

Also, fuck Charles Beamish. What a prick.
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Nicotti
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Re: 13th century Irish countryside tunnels (with pics)

Post by Nicotti »

PANIC! on the Titanic wrote:Then another castle was built on the site in the mid 15th century which sat around for some time, what happened to it I don't know, but the remains of neither are seen today.
Probably burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp.
More online investigation than onsite exploration these days.

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Re: 13th century Irish countryside tunnels (with pics)

Post by mindwaave »

Souterrain. I like the sound of that.

Thanks for keeping us posted, glad you two are still getting dirty :P
Preservation over plunder.
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