Man-made underground passage in Ballintemple (cork By.)

This Man-made underground passage was discovered during construction works at a housing development on Boreenamanna Road in Cork and was excavated by Tony Cummins (pers. comm.) who supplied the following details. The Man-made underground passage was revealed when part of the roof of a chamber collapsed under the weight of a soil dumper. It was excavated as there was immediate danger of the entire structure collapsing. It was drystone-built in an L-shaped trench and consisted of a passage that led to a single rectangular chamber via a narrow creepway. The passage (6.38m E-W; 1.1m N-S; H 1.1m) was accessed through an entrance pit in the E wall. It was roofed with lintels supported on a row of corbel stones but most of the lintels were cracked and the remaining portion of the roof collapsed shortly after the excavation commenced. The floor of the passage was cobbled with loosely packed, water-rolled stones. A stone-built creepway (L 1.3m; Wth 0.4m), roofed with three lintels, in the W end of the S wall of the passage gave access to a rectangular stone-built chamber (3.2m N-S; 1.5m E-W; H 1.1m). The floor level dropped sharply down from the creepway into the chamber. The roof of the chamber was formed by four large lintels (L 1.14-1.63m; Wth 0.48-0.96m; T 0.05-0.15m) supported by corbels. The roof was covered with a spread of smaller stones that sealed the gaps between the lintels. The chamber contained a small wall-press in the W wall and an air-vent in the S wall. Excavation showed that the entrance pit had been blocked with soil that contained sherds of 19th-century pottery. This backfilled deposit was truncated by a 'dumb-bell shaped' stone-lined kiln (6.3m N-S) of early modern date that extended to the N of the Man-made underground passage. A number of roof and wall stones that were missing from the Man-made underground passage may have been removed to build the lining of the kiln. Another Man-made underground passage (CO074-064----) was discovered c. 250m to the NNW in 1909. The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 5' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2009). Date of upload: 22 December 2009