2013:169 - Pallasboy/Killavalley/Rathgarrett/Derrycoffey/Cornaher/Montrath, Toar Bog, Westmeath

A re-assessment field walking survey was carried out in Toar Bog in August 2013 on behalf of Bord na Mona. Toar Bog is located 1km south-west of Tyrrellspass village Co. Westmeath and was initially prepared for production in 1999; after a single production season in 2000 it was left idle until more recently and it is now operated under the Haku system. It is currently being milled only partially for fuel peats while the remainder is being produced for horticultural moss peat for export.

A survey of Toar bog was carried out during the Archaeological Survey of Ireland Peatland Survey in 2000 by the IAWU when 408 sites were recorded. The majority of the sites concentrated in the narrowest part of the bog in the townlands of Killavally and Pallasboy. Thirteen sites were dated after the Peatland Survey and the dates ranged from the Late Bronze Age to the Medieval periods.

Thirty-eight sites were excavated by ADS in 2005 and 2006 under 25 archaeological licences?. The remaining 368 sites comprised those which were considered not suitable for excavation as they were too deep (144), sites that are sufficiently investigated or resolved during the course of the Peatland Survey and those that were unlikely to remain extant after several production seasons (224). The majority of the sites were fragmentary in nature and several sites previously identified as separate sites were shown during the course of the excavations to form part of single structures.

The 2013 re-assessment survey identified a total of 75 sites comprising four possible platforms, one Road – Class 1 togher, four Road – Class 2 toghers, nineteen Road – Class 3 toghers and forty-seven Structure – Peatlands. The disparity between the first and second round of survey work has been attributed, by the author, to the fact that the first round of survey was carried out shortly after Toar Bog was prepared for production. The use of ditchers and screw levellers had scattered already fragmentary brushwood material across the field surfaces making site identification and interpretation difficult. Based on the 2013 results it would also appear that there are a high proportion of similarly constructed light roundwood and brushwood structures in Toar Bog that continued to make linkages between sightings difficult.

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