County: Tipperary Site name: Killeen Bog, Lurgoe
Sites and Monuments Record No.: TS054–75 Licence number: 10E0212
Author: Nicola Rohan, Archaeological Development Services Ltd, Unit 4, The Printhouse, 22–23 South Cumberland Street, Dublin 2.
Site type: Trackway
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 618137m, N 649822m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.599369, -7.732266
A single cutting, orientated east–west and measuring 4m in length by 3m in width, was excavated over the site identified as a togher (TS-KLN007a–c) during the Peatland Survey 2006. At that time, the site was described as a longitudinal roundwood and heavy brushwood togher. During the peatland survey it was visible as three sightings on the field surface across three production fields. It was orientated north-east/south-west towards the eastern side of the dry land island at Lurgoe. What remains of the site is regularly laid longitudinal roundwoods that are overlain with gravel along the centre and the eastern end of the site.
Cutting 1 was excavated at the western end of the site (TS-KLN007a) within an area of unmilled bog at the western edge of Bord na Móna peat production. The trackway continues westwards for approximately 30m into a narrow tract of unmilled bog that is separated from the dry land island at Lurgoe by a deep drain.
Excavation revealed that the trackway has two separate phases of construction. The upper surface was composed of densely laid longitudinal brushwoods with larger roundwood elements also running longitudinally along the sides of the trackway. The longitudinals were supported by transversely laid roundwood and brushwood elements. A thin layer of peat separated the upper trackway surface from an earlier trackway composed of longitudinally laid roundwood and brushwood elements supported by transverse elements and held in place by pegs. It is this phase that was recorded as TS-KLN007a and was subsequently dated to ad 650–880. The later phase has been milled away where the site is exposed on the production bog surface and both phases survive at the unmilled western edge of the bog.
Metal-detection survey work was carried out by Jane Whitaker under detection licence 10R112 (see No. 621 above) on 31 August 2010. No finds were recorded.
