2013:120 - Ballykilleen/Ballynakill/Ballinrath/Rathvilla or Rathclonbrackan/Eskermore/Clongarret/Cloncreen, Cloncreen Bog, Offaly

A re-assessment field walking survey was carried out in Cloncreen Bog in September 2013 on behalf of Bord na Móna. Cloncreen Bog is situated at the southern limit of Derrygreenagh Works, south-west of Edenderry Town and covers an area of 1018ha within BnM's Derrygreenagh Works. The bog has been in industrial production since 1961 and is partially milled out with the greatest depth of peat remaining on the eastern side.

Cloncreen Bog was archaeologically surveyed in 2001 by IAWU as part of the Archaeological Survey of Ireland Peatland Survey. A total of 117 sites were identified in this bog consisting of 2 primary toghers, 5 secondary toghers, 38 tertiary toghers, 30 worked wood in situ, 27 unworked wood in situ, a complex, a post row and a number of recovered artefacts. Almost all of the sites are located in the north-eastern corner of the bog with a small number of lithics and a single wooden structure spread across the western and southern sides of the bog.

Thirty-eight sites were excavated by ADS Ltd in 2003 as part of the BnM Mitigation Project. The excavations included toghers, platforms and four Bronze Age anthropomorphic wooden artefacts. The dates for the sites excavated in Cloncreen ranged from the Neolithic to the Iron Age and the sites themselves varied considerably from a substantial plank and split timber trackway to brushwood trackways incorporating hurdle panels to dispersed arrangements of brushwood and roundwoods.

The re-assessment survey carried out in 2013 on behalf of Bord na Móna identified two sites in the north eastern extent of Cloncreen Bog both of which were in poor condition and exposed on the field surface.

ADS Ltd, Unit 4 The Printhouse, 22-23 South Cumberland Street, Dublin 2.