County: Tipperary Site name: DER265, DERRYVILLE BOG, Killoran
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 97E0158
Author: John Ó Néill, Lisheen Archaeological Project, for Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Fulacht fia
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 620800m, N 668557m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.767660, -7.691782
Sixty metres further north of the above site was another spread of burnt material (DER265) over an area of 8.8m (north–south) by 8.4m (east–west) which was up to 0.6m deep in places. It was composed of around 90% heat-shattered sandstone (80%) and limestone (20%) in a mixture of charcoal, peat and silt scattered in a rough circle around an elongated pit which seems to have functioned as a trough. Dug into the subsoil, this pit contained a 2.7m-long, 0.6m-wide partially hollowed oak trunk. This was examined by Niall Gregory, who confirmed that it was not a reused dugout canoe. A Bord na Móna field drain had bisected the site and disturbed the south-eastern half of this pit. In the other half there was a deposit of stones (60% sandstone, 40% limestone) which seemed to be the remains of the last firing of the trough. There was no evidence of a hearth on the site.
As the water-table rose, peat began to encroach on the eastern side of the site, requiring a platform to be built while the site was still in use. Occasional fragments of burnt stone tumbled into the peat which overlay the platform. A date of 1425–1120 cal. BC (Beta-111377) was obtained from a timber used in this platform, which was 4m long by 3m wide. It was made from a loose arrangement of timbers mostly set north-west/south-east or north–south. The majority of the wood sampled from the platform was identified as crab-apple, along with some ash and alder. This site lay close to a number of trackways excavated by Sarah Cross (see Excavations 1997, No. 519).
Minorco Lisheen Ltd, Killoran, Moyne, Co. Tipperary
