Structure - peatland

The National Monuments Service's description

This site was located in the industrial peatlands of Cloonshannagh Bog. It was first recorded in the 2013 Reassessment Peatland Survey as a platform visible in the drain face 0.21 to 0.77m below bog surface (Whitaker 2014).

The site was excavated in 2014 (licence 14E0263). It was dated cal. 359-174 BC. Two isolated brushwood elements were uncovered 0.2m below the field surface, oriented NNE and NW-SE. They were overlying one another. There was a further c. 0.26m of peat between these elements and the site recorded as RO-CLS106.
The excavated site was composed of a haphazard arrangement of thirteen brushwood and roundwood elements with no apparent form or construction contained within an area measuring 3.3 x 0.65m in size. The elements were hazel, ash, birch and oak. Seven of the elements had worked ends. This site appears to have been truncated by the Bord na Móna drain and may originally have formed part of a small platform (Coughlan and Whitaker 2019).

Compiled by: Femke Vleeshouwer/Jane Whitaker/Tim Coughlan

Date of upload: 16 April 2020

References

Whitaker, J. 2014 Re‐assessment Peatland Survey 2013, Blackwater, Boora, Derrydreenagh, Mountdillon Group of Bogs, County Offaly, Longford, Westmeath and Roscommon. Unpublished report prepared by ADS for Bord na Móna.

Coughlan, T & Whitaker, J 2019 Final excavation report Cloonshannagh Bog, Co Roscommon. Bord na Mona Peatland Archaeological Services 2014-2017. Unpublished report submitted to DOEHLG & BnM