County: Tipperary Site name: DER64, Cooleeny
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0202ext.
Author: Cara Murray, Lisheen Archaeological Project, for Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Road - class 2 togher
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 622203m, N 666113m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.745634, -7.671147
On the western side of the bog a brushwood togher, DER64 (1420–1020 BC), orientated roughly east–west, was traced for 22.3m of its length across the marginal forest. The site was first uncovered as a single worked roundwood within a trench cut by the IAWU to examine the peat stratigraphy; machine clearance revealed a brushwood and roundwood togher. The landfall off the track occurred on the margins of the marginal forest where the track ran around the edge of an alder root system located on the south-western side of the cutting. The site itself was constructed of smaller, densely packed roundwoods and brushwood. Above this, on the western limit of the site, larger roundwoods and some stray timbers were used to extend the use of the site. Both deposits were separated by c. 0.05m of silty brown peat, indicating two separate phases of use of the site. To the south of these features a number of displaced timbers were located which originally had formed part of the two aforementioned contexts. The site was constructed at the transition from raised bog to fen peat. It was inundated by hypnoid peat, mosses peat and tree roots which were able to grow in this environment by using the track as anchorage.
Minorco Lisheen Ltd, Killoran, Moyne, Co. Tipperary
