What is recorded here

In 1864, Colonel A. Lane Fox and Richard Caulfield crawled into a hidden oval chamber near Ballyglass, measuring two stone rooms connected by narrow passages. The first room stood four feet high, the second five, forcing every visitor to bend or crawl through darkness built by human hands. That much is known. What is lost is the reason someone dug these rooms beneath a field, perhaps to hide, pray, or keep warmth from winter winds. The passage disappeared from memory, but its shape remains in Caulfield's numbers, waiting for someone brave enough to imagine the life that moved through it.

Investigated by Colonel A. Lane Fox and Richard Caulfield in 1864 (Caulfield 1866, 294), in a field N of holy well (CO051-098----). Caulfield (ibid.) described an oval stone-built chamber '9 feet by 3 feet 4 inches and 4 feet high' with narrow passages on the W and E; the latter led to a second similar chamber '9 feet 8 inches by 3 feet 2 inches and 5 feet high'. Man-made underground passage entered through a hole 'on one side of a broad earthen ditch' (ibid.) possibly belonging to the ringfort (CO051-090----). Exact location not known. 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

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