County: Galway Site name: CASTLEGAR BOG, Kilcrin/Knockaunroe/ Cloonbanniv/Eglish/Addergoogle North
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 07E0741
Author: Nicola Rohan, Archaeological Development Services Ltd.
Site type: Road - class 1 togher and Platform - peatland
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 581431m, N 739436m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.404745, -8.279237
Castlegar Bog was surveyed as part of the Peatland Survey 2007. The bog is situated within the Bord na Móna Derryfadda group, 4.5km east of Ahascragh, Co. Galway. Castlegar Bog is the southernmost bog of the group surveyed. It is U-shaped in plan, its northern side enclosing a large dry-land island known as Dalysgrove. It bounded by the River Suck along its eastern and southern sides, to the west by higher ground that overlooks the bog and to the north by low-lying dry land and Killaderry Bog South. The bog measures 366ha in size and contains 148 production fields that are currently in production.
In total, 56 sites were recorded in Castlegar Bog. The sites were exclusively distributed on the eastern side of the bog in an area bounded by a prominent ridge to the west and by the dry-land island at Dalysgrove to the east. The sites included three plank trackways, ten trackways, one possible trackway, fourteen platforms and 28 sightings of archaeological wood. The majority of these sites were orientated east–west or north-east/south-west towards the dry-land island at Dalysgrove.
Two of the ten trackways recorded were more substantial than the rest. The first of these was a roundwood and brushwood trackway orientated east–west from the western limit of the bog for 615m towards the dry-land island at Dalysgrove. The walking surface, where it survived, was composed of regularly laid heavy brushwood and roundwood transverse elements, supported in places by longitudinally laid heavy brushwood and/or a thin layer of irregularly laid light brushwood. The second trackway, located to the south, was composed of single or multiple parallel longitudinal planks or roundwoods supported, in places, by brushwood and roundwood transverse elements. It measured 510m in length and was orientated south-west/north-east towards the dry land at Dalysgrove.
Post-excavation work is ongoing. Radiocarbon and dendrochronological samples will provide additional information regarding the date of the sites.
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