Road - class 1 togher, Lullymore, Co. Kildare
Co. Kildare |
Roads & Tracks
Somewhere beneath the bogland at Lullymore in County Kildare, three ancient timber roads lie side by side, each running parallel to the others across the wet ground. This kind of structure is known as a togher, a wooden trackway built to allow passage across boggy or waterlogged terrain. What makes this particular cluster unusual is not simply the presence of one such road, but three of them, closely associated and apparently laid out in relation to one another.
The togher recorded here was found at two separate locations along its course, running immediately east of a second example. It was built from a longitudinal oak plank, damaged and fragmentary by the time of survey, along with two narrow, squared roundwood timbers. Immediately to the west lay another togher, and further west again, traces of a third. The three structures together suggest a corridor of movement across the bog, though whether they were in use simultaneously or represent different phases of construction and repair is not known. No date has been established for any of them, which is itself a reminder of how much bog archaeology resists easy interpretation. The peat that preserves timber so well can also make sequencing and dating a slow, careful business.
