2000:0829 - CORHILL BOG, Lisdermot, Offaly

Excavations were carried out in Corhill Bog, Co. Offaly, as part of the Bord na Móna Archaeological Mitigation Project. These excavations were undertaken to resolve known archaeological sites so that Bord na Móna could resume peat production in areas that had been cleared of archaeology. The field season ran from June to August 2000. This licence covered the excavation of three separate trackways that were found close to each other. The sites lay in Corhill Bog, which is south-east of the Ferbane–Athlone road.

Three cuttings were set out along the length of a single plank walkway. Excavation revealed a linear plank trackway, traced across the Bord na Móna fields for a length of 140m. The site varied slightly in composition along its length, as did the level of preservation. In general the site was composed of longitudinal oak planks laid end to end and underlain in certain places by transverse planks. The upper planks would have formed the walking surface of the trackway, and the underlying transverses distributed the weight of the upper planks and raised them off the wet peat. Pegs located in mortice holes were noted in one of the cuttings. These pegs would have stabilised the trackway and prevented it from moving in the peat. The plank walkway was 3m wide, but the actual walking surface of the single planks averaged 0.4m. This site has been dated to AD 626±9 (Q-9295).

The fourth cutting excavated revealed the remains of two destroyed linear brushwood routeways (Sites A and B) located on the Bord na Móna field surface. The two sites were quite similar in construction and were composed of sparsely arranged roundwood, brushwood and pegs. The majority of the wood was laid transversely, but some of it was laid haphazardly, possibly owing to disturbance. Site B was located at the opposite side of the drain to Site A and ran parallel to it. The site was also composed of a dispersed spread of roundwood, brushwood and pegs. The roundwoods measured between 0.07m and 0.1m in diameter, and the brushwoods averaged 0.04m in diameter. Most of the elements were orientated transversely; there were some smaller brushwoods orientated longitudinally. The sites were located c. 0.8m above the plank trackway (AD 626), which separates the plank trackway and the brushwood/roundwood sites by c. 1000 years. Both Sites A and B were traced in an east–west direction for approximately 400m.

Two excavations (see Excavations 2000, Nos 830 and 832), located c. 150m east of Site A and B, were carried out by Jane Whitaker this season. The sites exposed in these excavations were similar in type and size to what was uncovered in the excavations carried out in Cutting 3. Through evidence from these excavations, it can be said that No. 830 is a continuation of Site A and No. 832 is a continuation of Site B.

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