Man-made underground passage in Stradbally North — Report the wrong picture

What is recorded here

Castleoaks House Hotel stands above a hidden corridor that eluded every official survey. Men dug through solid earth around 1987, building a passage whose ceiling leaned inward like a living throat. They wanted the ground to give up something sharp, perhaps a chamber for water or a route past a danger now forgotten. Golf balls and house foundations erased the entrance, but the angle of that abandoned doorway still cuts through the polished story of the estate.

In pasture, on the grounds of Castleoaks House Hotel, overlooking the River Shannon to W. Not depicted on OS historic mapping. An opening into a subsurface corbelled passage running W was discovered around 1987. Field subsequently developed as a pitch and putt course and precise location of underground passage is now unknown (O’Rahilly 2000). Site assessed as part of a proposed residential and hotel suite development in 2001 (Byrne 2001). Two phases of pre-development testing (2002) and a subsequent monitoring brief (2003) were carried out in the vicinity of the monument, yet nothing of archaeological significance was noted (Collins 2002; 2002; 2003). Area of monument now appears to have been developed as a housing estate which is visible on Digital Globe aerial photography taken 2011-13. Compiled by: Alison McQueen, and Vera Rahilly Date of upload: 18 June 2020

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