County: Offaly Site name: BALLYKEAN BOG, Kilbeg
Sites and Monuments Record No.: OF026-057 Licence number: 04E0797
Author: Sinclair Turrell, Archaeological Development Services Ltd.
Site type: Road - class 1 togher
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 650545m, N 719930m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.227360, -7.243015
This site was first identified as a single plank trackway (OF-KLG001) by the IAWU during their survey of Ballykean Bog, Co. Offaly, in 2003 and was recorded at 36 locations, both on the field surface and in drains. It was traced across the bog running in a north-east/south-west direction for 643m. Four cuttings measuring 4m by 3m were opened and extended where necessary. In addition to this, a total of 25 current sightings of the trackway were also recorded.
The typical method of construction was a tangentially split oak plank resting at either end on either a plank or a roundwood transverse and pegged into place by a single brushwood peg through a central, squared mortise hole. There were parallel roundwoods to the south of the longitudinal at Sightings L and N and to the north at Sighting V, suggesting a variation on the single-plank method of construction to create a broadening of the trackway in places. According to the dendro dates obtained, two timbers were obtained from trees felled around 1589–1600 BC and a third some 150 years later, around 1454 BC. This suggests that the trackway was in use for at least this period and that some wood was later renewed. The later date is very close to the dendro date of 1425±9 BC for trackway OF-KLG002 to the north, which displayed an identical method of construction, and it could be that the two sites were, in part at least, contemporary.
The trackway ran from the high ground, now known as Walsh Island, in a south-easterly direction across the bog to another, less prominent, area of higher ground, now covered by forestry. The fields and drains at either end of the route or the trackway contain large amounts of pine stumps at about the same level. This suggests that these areas could have been covered in pine woods at the time that the trackway was in use. Core samples have been taken from around the track and it is hoped that analysis of the pollen, beetles and plant macrofossil remains will lead to a better understanding of the local environmental conditions that existed at the time.
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