County: Offaly Site name: Mountlucas Bog RD23-3-7, Ballynakill
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 13E0136
Author: Sinclair Turrell
Site type: Road – Class 2 Togher
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 649816m, N 723646m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.260822, -7.253355
This site was discovered during excavation of trackway RD23-3-3? and was located just below it, offset slightly to the west, It was on a north-south orientation and was composed of longitudinal brushwoods and roundwoods, together with a few pegs. It was excavated for a total distance of 14.1m and was up to 2.5m wide and 0.27m in depth, with roundwood elements measuring up to 4.9m in length and 0.12m in diameter.
The wood was in a generally poor condition, with elements broken along their length. The site had a rather scattered and disarranged appearance overall and was densest in the centre, where it was three layers thick. Towards the northern end, where the site had been truncated by the road cutting, it had a particularly fragmentary appearance. The southern end of the trackway displayed a much better state of preservation with densely packed brushwoods and roundwoods which seemed to define both edges of the trackway. The trackway continued beyond the southern limit of excavation.
A piece of alder returned a radiocarbon date of 4755±34 BP (UBA-24166).
Dominic Delany & Associates, Unit 3, Howley Court, Main Street, Oranmore, Co. Galway
