1987:36 - CORLEA BOG, Corlea, Cloonbreany, Derryoghil, Longford

Excavations continued in Corlea Bog, Co. Longford, in June and July 1987. The work was financed by the Office of Public Works and considerable material assistance was received from Bord na Mona.

Most of the investigations were concentrated on a section of the great Iron Age timber road (Corlea 1), which was well preserved under almost 1.5m of bog in a privately-owned section of the bog in the townland of Cloonbreany. A continuous length of about 35m was uncovered. Details of construction were similar to those encountered in previous seasons. The upper timbers, however, were among the most massive found. These were transverse oak planks, many up to 4m in length. All were mortised at their ends and pegged to the bog. Several of the largest had double pegs piercing them at one end.

Finds, casually discarded by the road-builders, included pot-staves, a knife handle and two carefully-shaped pegs, all of wood. Of the latter, one had a triangular notch cut into one end and was barbed at the other in the manner of a modern tent peg.

Three other tracks already investigated in previous seasons were further examined. Two (Corlea 2 and 3) were brushwood constructions of a later Bronze Age date. The third (Corlea 5) was a simple plank walkway dating to the 6th century A.D.

In addition to the work in Corlea, brief investigations also took place in a nearby Bord na Móna bog in the townland of Derryoghil. Here no fewer than 14 trackways were discovered, exposed on the surface of the bog by peat-milling activities. One was made of transverse oak planks on a brushwood foundation. The rest were of brushwood construction. Only six could be very superficially examined in the time available. They included examples made of longitudinally placed birch or hazel rods and examples of hurdle construction. None has as yet been dated.

These sites have been published in Antiquity 60 (1986), 50-53 and Archaeology Ireland Vol. 1, No. 2 (1987), 60-64.