County: Offaly Site name: Mountlucas Bog
Sites and Monuments Record No.: None Licence number: 12E0094
Author: Dominic Delany
Site type: Peatland - various
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 651258m, N 725095m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.273706, -7.231506
Monitoring was carried out at Mountlucas Wind Farm, Co. Offaly between March 2012 and October 2013. The wind farm is located on Mountlucas Bog, which forms part of the Derrygreenagh Group and comprises a total area of approximately 1220ha. The bog is still partially operational. The wind farm is being constructed on the ex-production area which was largely overgrown and flooded when development works commenced in 2012. Nineteen new archaeological sites including trackways, post rows and a fulacht fiadh were identified during the construction of 28 wind turbines, c.23km of access roads, drains, silt ponds and associated site works. The most significant discovery comprised a complex of trackways found during work on the southern access road in January 2013. Dating evidence indicates that this complex dates from the middle to late Neolithic period. The artefactual assemblage from the monitoring programme included a small amount of lithic material, the partial remains of a possible deer skull and a deposit of late 19th/early-20th century glass bottles and domestic wares.
Dominic Delany & Associates, Unit 3, Howley Court, Oranmore, Co. Galway
