County: Offaly Site name: CLONCREEN BOG, BALLINRATH/ BALLYKILLEEN/BALLYNAKILL/CLONCREEN/ESKER MORE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E0941
Author: Conor McDermott, Irish Archaeological Wetland Unit
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 619211m, N 720627m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.235687, -7.712223
Cloncreen Bog was surveyed on behalf of Dúchas as part of the Peatland Survey 2002. The bog covers an area of 1018ha and is situated at the southern limit of Bord na Móna’s Derrygreenagh works. It is adjacent to Edenderry power station, south-west of Edenderry town. The survey identified 141 archaeological sightings, representing 117 archaeological sites and artefacts, and was carried out over five weeks in August and September.
Most of the sites are concentrated in the north-eastern corner of the bog, below a large hilltop enclosure on Ballykilleen Hill. Most are well-defined wooden structures, usually traceable for 15m or less, with a high proportion showing a clear orientation. Two of the sites form longer trackways, over 50m in surviving length, and these are among the earliest structures in the area.
A number of sites from the bog have been dated, with results ranging from the Early Neolithic, c. 3500 BC, to the Late Bronze Age, c. 600 BC. Most of the sites, however, appear to date to the Middle to Late Bronze Age. A number of the sites included hurdle panels, with one example secured with twisted wooden withes at the end of the panel. Four sites incorporated large timbers with series of notches cut along their lengths. These may be rough-outs for artefacts or reused structural elements. The latest site incorporated an agricultural implement composed of a curved elm beam and a twisted yew withe. A number of cattle horns and the mandible of a small pig were found spread throughout the site. Previous finds from this bog include a barbed and tanged arrowhead with its wooden shaft still attached, an associated bone axe, a socketed bronze axe and around 60 Elizabethan silver coins.
A number of lithics, including four leaf-shaped arrowheads of flint and chert and a broken flint plano-convex knife, were recovered from disturbed contexts in the southern and western parts of the bog. A single small wooden structure in the vicinity of the finds in the south of the bog produced the earliest Neolithic radiocarbon date.
Department of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4
