County: Monaghan Site name: SCOTCH CORNER
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 01E0474
Author: Edmond O’Donovan, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 673923m, N 826337m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.180660, -6.867560
Two fragments of giant Irish deer (Megaloceros giganteus) antlers were discovered in the course of the construction of an extension to a landfill at Scotch Corner, Co. Monaghan. The new landfill cell was being constructed in a former lakebed. The site was set in the rolling topography typical of County Monaghan, in a belt of low glacial hills or drumlins dotted with small lakes and valley systems just north-east of a cluster of lakes named Six Mile Lough. The site where the antlers were discovered was primarily partly flooded and boggy peatland, with the eastern section representing a former lake identified on Ordnance Survey maps as Little Lough.
The monitoring centred on an area measuring approximately 228m (north-east/south-west) by 155m, where two landfill cells were being constructed in bogland. The peat deposit ranged from 0.5m to 6.16m in depth across the site and was deepest around the former lake in the east. However, the peat in this area was floating on a liquid/peaty core above organic silty clay over bedrock. It was possible to log the rough position and deposits from which the antlers were recovered. The soil profile recorded at this location revealed a deposit sequence of bedrock overlain by a thin gravelly clay, overlain in turn by a thin deposit of peat sealed by clay, on top of which was a lacustrine clay. The antlers were recovered from this lacustrine layer. The lacustrine deposits were stratified below deep deposits (c. 3m) of poorly humified wet peat.
A faunal report on the antlers by Melanie McQuade concluded that ‘these antler fragments are presumably from the same animal: a male who died some time between late autumn and early spring. The brow tine, which is frequently absent from antlers, may have snapped off, causing the cranial end of the right antler to break as it did.’ The lowlands of Cavan and Monaghan, where former lakes became covered in bog, are favourable for the preservation of skeletal remains, and many examples of giant Irish deer have been recovered from this region (Mitchell and Parkes 1949). Seven find-spots in Monaghan are recorded in the REQUIEM database in the National Museum of Ireland. These include a complete skeleton from Lough Naglack, which is on display in the Natural History Museum.
No archaeological deposits were identified at the site.
Reference
Mitchell, G.F. and Parkes, H.M. 1949 The giant deer in Ireland. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 52B, 291–314.
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