County: Longford Site name: CORLEA/CLOONBREANY
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Barry Raftery, Department of Archaeology, University College Dublin
Site type: Road - class 2 togher
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 609449m, N 762820m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.615129, -7.857195
Two wooden trackways were investigated in June and July 1985. The first was a corduroy road of substantial proportions which had originally extended across the bog for a length of 1km. Much of this was destroyed before excavation commenced.
The road was constructed of split oak 'sleepers', up to 3.5m in length, placed contiguously on parallel 'runners' which extend along the length of the road. Some of the 'sleepers' were held in place by pegs hammered through mortices cut into their ends.
Wooden artefacts found under the road include bucket staves, a handled implement, portions of what may have been a cart and an elaborately carved board of uncertain function.
Dendrochronological examination by Dr. M.G.L. Baillie, Q.U.B., has established a date of 148 BC for the construction of the road.
A second, brushwood track was found in the bog at a depth of 60cm below that just described. It was 1.5m in average width and was simply constructed of birch branches laid down at right angles to, and along the line of, the track. It is obviously older than the Iron Age road, but its precise date remains to be established.
