County: Offaly Site name: Ballylennon/Barnaboy/Derrygroghan Little/Cappagh/Kilmurry/Kilconfert/Ballycommon/Rathdrum, Daingean Bog
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 13E0230
Author: Jane Whitaker
Site type: Peatland
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 642640m, N 728953m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.309137, -7.360190
A re-assessment field walking survey was carried out in Daingean Bog in August 2013 on behalf of Bord na Móna. Daingean Bog is situated c. 3km west-north-west of Daingean Town and is divided into a northern and a southern part by the Kilmurry-Kilclonfert road; it covers a total area of 760ha within Bord na Móna's Derrygreenagh Works.
Daingean South Bog was previously surveyed under licence 01E0477? by the IAWU at which time a total of 354 sites and 6 artefacts were recorded during the course of this work. The IAWU report noted that during the summer of 2001 a ‘screw leveller’ was used on the fields in the northern part of Daingean South to produce the camber on the field in advance of production. No milling had taken place, the drains were generally quite shallow with visibility typically limited to 0.6m in depth or less. While 17 trackway sites were recorded the majority of the sites identified in Daingean (South) were single sighting structures and deposits.
Excavations were carried out in 2004? by ADS as part of the BnM Mitigation Project in Rathdrum townland. Three of these sites were primary toghers, with two single plank trackways dating to AD 773 and AD 555. Another trackway, dating to between AD 1159 and AD 1230, was of mixed construction, with gravel, brushwood, scraps of plank and possible hurdles all being used. Two secondary toghers, one of these dating to AD 547, was of single plank construction, while the other was of brushwood.
Daingean North and South were field walked in September 2013 at which time a total of 51 sites and one artefact (a Medieval leather shoe) were recorded in Daingean South (Rathdrum). No sites were recorded in Daingean North (Derries). The sites were concentrated mainly in the most narrow part of the southern extent of the bog with a second distribution of sites in a second concentration immediately to the north, making a similar pattern to that of the IAWU site distribution.
ADS Ltd, Unit 4 The Printhouse, 22-23 South Cumberland Street, Dublin 2
