Cave in Rathbran More, passage in County Meath

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What is recorded here

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Situated at the crest of a steep N-facing slope. This feature is annotated as ‘Cave’ in gothic lettering on the 1836 and 1908 editions of the OS 6-inch map. The Man-made underground passage is beneath an E-W road and has an entrance that is still open under the S face of the N road bank. It was described in 1969 (SMR file) as a drystone-built, L-shaped passage (total L c. 11m) that extended S from the entrance and then W before terminating in beehive chamber that was partially collapsed revealing rock outcrop behind the stonwork but the chamber has an air-vent extending W. Archaeological testing (04E0818) by R. Meenan immediately to the S produced no related material (excavations.ie 2004:1322). Further archaeological testing (08E0485) by C. Gleeson c. 50m to the W on the N side of the road (Doolan and Gleeson 2008) also failed to produce any material relating to it. More recent archaeological testing (20E0417) by Donald Murphy c. 20m to the E at the closest point and N of the road did not produce any evidence of an associated enclosure, but it did uncover an E-W trench (Wth 2.25m plus; D 1.6m) filled with soils that had plastic inclusions just inside the N road boundary (excavations.ie 2020:147).

From the National Monuments Service (Archaeological Survey of Ireland) record ME013-002

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National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
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Algirdas at Lithuanian Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

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