County: Longford Site name: CNY-002, Clooneeny Bog
Sites and Monuments Record No.: n/a Licence number: 14E0256
Author: Tim Coughlan
Site type: Class 3 Togher Road
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 610046m, N 773411m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.710287, -7.847830
Clooneeny Bog was initially surveyed by the Irish Archaeological Wetland Unit in 1991 at which point 19 sites were recorded. Of these 15 are currently listed as ‘redundant records’ in the Archaeological Survey of Ireland records. The remaining four are recorded as two post rows in the northern extent of the bog and two Road – Class 3 Toghers in the north-western extent. A re-assessment survey of Clooneeny Bog was carried out in 2013 which recorded four sites. Of these, two sites – CNY001 and CNY002 – were proposed for excavation in 2014 as part of the Bord na Móna Mitigation Project in the townland of Clooneeny.
A single cutting measuring 3m x 5m was excavated across site CNY002. Very little peat cover remained over this site. It was a maximum of 0.03m deep and was moderately humified (H3-), sphagnum-rich with frequent inclusions of eriophorum throughout the cutting with occasional menyanthes and natural woody root inclusions.
Excavation revealed the poorly preserved remains of a hurdle trackway oriented north-south. Nine fragmentary east-west oriented sails 0.03–0.13m in diameter were placed 0.12–0.2m apart with a maximum surviving length of 0.75m. Between the sails was a fairly dense arrangement of fragmentary north-south oriented rods that ranged in diameter from 8–32mm and had a maximum surviving length of 0.59m. The most dense part of the site was contained within the northern extent of the cutting and measured 2.9m in length and 0.75–1.58m in width with more dispersed, machine damaged fragmentary brushwood evident in the southern extent of the cutting.
LF CNY002 was an Iron Age hurdle structure dated to between 164 BC – AD 51 (2σ). The wood samples analysed included rods and sails from a degraded hurdle structure. Sails from the hurdle were mainly identified as hazel with one ash and one alder sample identified. The sails ranged in size from 24mm to 40mm and ages were between 7 and 10 years. One rod was analysed which was identified as hazel wood and it measured 25mm in size and contained 5 annual tree rings. There was no woodworking recorded on the samples.
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