County: Roscommon Site name: DERRYCASHEL
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Isabella Mulhall, Coordinator Bog Bodies Research Project, National Museum of Ireland
Site type: Burial
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 564551m, N 799358m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.942340, -8.539920
The Derrycashel bog body came to light in a peat-harvesting machine which was being dismantled (ahead of annual servicing) in a Bord na Móna depot near Ballyleague, Co. Roscommon, in January 2005. The machine had been parked up in the depot since the previous September. The body itself was in a fragmentary state. The path of the harvesting machine was effectively retraced in the hope of finding further body parts, but this was unsuccessful. Further examination of the peat lodged in the actual machine revealed a fragment of a tibia. The body has been examined by several specialists as part of the NMI Bog Bodies Research Project and has recently been conserved by the Conservation Department, NMI. The sex of the body has not yet been determined. The body has been radiocarbon dated to the Middle Bronze Age.
Kildare Street, Dublin 2
