Man-made underground passage in Kilcondy — Report the wrong picture

What is recorded here

Kilcondy holds three chained chambers cut into living rock, forcing a crawling entrance and a shelf-like stone ledge that suggest deliberate human shaping rather than casual digging. A plough broke the hillside in 1976, exposing what McCarthy measured the following year: narrow rooms, collapsed roofs, soil-filled floors and creepholes linking one space to the next. The absence of any surface trace makes the chambers feel less like a ruined building and more like a hidden chamber breathed into the hill, perhaps used for storage, shelter or quiet ritual beside the nearby ringfort.

On hillside c. 150m W of ringfort (CO083-029----). Discovered in 1976 due to ploughing; investigated by McCarthy (1977, 267-8) who described three earth-cut chambers. Chamber 1: (L 1.8m; Wth 0.8m; H 0.8m; long axis NW-SE); soil-filled shaft at NW end slopes upwards to original entrance; rock outcrop in S corner; short stone wall in NE side. Chamber 2: (L 2.25m; Wth 0.9m; H 0.8m; long axis NW-SE) entered by creephole from SE corner of chamber 1; roof collapsed, floor covered with soil; recess in NE side, rear of which is partially stone-built. Creephole in SE corner to centre of sidewall of chamber 3: (L 2.7m; Wth 1m; H 1m; long axis NE-SW); SW end partially stone-built with rock outcrop forming shelf-like feature. No visible surface trace. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 3: Mid Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

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