What is recorded here

No visible chamber exists at Ráth Ciaráin because the building is buried beneath the ground. The visible fort is only the roof of a hidden house, and the flat earth inside the ring is the floor above a room someone stopped using. The chamber is not lost. It is waiting to be remembered as a place where a person lived, not a hole in the ground.

A circular enclosure and 'Cave' are incorrectly positioned near this location on the first edition of the OS map. This is rectified on the second edition map, though only the 'Cave' is marked. The enclosure survives as a U-shaped earthen bank, closed on its E side by a modern field wall. The bank is composed of earth and a large quantity of small stone, and encloses an area measuring 15m N-S x 18.6m E-W. It barely rises above the interior of the site, but it splays widely outwards giving a basal width of 6.5m. It is 4m wide on top, and rises a maximum of 1m above external ground level at S. The interior of the enclosure is level and apparently featureless. An opening to a Man-made underground passage (KE087-056001-) is located in the external face of the bank at SW. The Man-made underground passage is stone-built, 20.7m in total length, and comprises five separate passages. These have a maximum width at floor level of 1.3m and are up to 1.9m high. Their walls, slightly corbelled, are of drystone construction and are roofed with lintels. The present entrance, .76m x .46m, gives access to the first passage, which has a slightly curved course in a NW direction. It is 6.2m long, and 1.2m inside the entrance, in the SW wall, is a small blocked ope which may have been the Man-made underground passage's original entrance. The second passage is separated from the first by a large stone slab which is secured between the roofing lintels and hangs to within .6m of the present floor level. This passage is 5.5m long and is the highest and widest in the Man-made underground passage. A narrow shaft, probably an air-vent, is located in its W wall at roof level. This passage and the remaining ones are aligned N-S. Access to the third passage is gained through an inserted wall with a lintelled creepway, .6m high, .6m wide and .9m long. The passage is 3.7m long and its floor slopes up towards the fourth passage, from which it is separated by a slab projecting from the W wall. The fourth passage is 3m long with an uneven rock floor. A horizontally positioned slab, located just below the roofing lintel at the passage's N end, marks the entrance into the collapsed fifth section of the Man-made underground passage. A large perforated slab located in the centre of the enclosure appears to overlie this section of the Man-made underground passage, and may have marked a second point of entry. The above description is derived from A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan (compilers), 'The Iveragh peninsula: an archaeological survey of South Kerry'. Cork University Press (1996), no. 541. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 29 July 2013

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.