Road - class 3 togher, Derryglogher, Co. Longford
Co. Longford |
Roads & Tracks
Beneath the bogland of Derryglogher in County Longford, aligned on a northeast to southwest axis, lies what archaeologists classify as a class 3 togher: a wooden trackway laid down across wet ground to allow passage through terrain that would otherwise be impassable.
These structures are among the quieter surprises of Irish wetland archaeology, surviving for centuries or even millennia in the oxygen-poor, acidic conditions of peat bogs that would destroy timber in almost any other environment.
A togher is essentially a timber road, typically constructed from split or whole logs, planks, or brushwood laid transversely or longitudinally across soft ground. The classification system reflects differences in construction technique and complexity, with class 3 examples generally representing a fairly robust form of trackway engineering. This particular example in Derryglogher was noted during a field survey in 1988, recorded through a personal communication from B. Raftery, a name closely associated with Irish wetland archaeology and the broader study of ancient roadways in the Irish landscape. The find was documented as part of work carried out by the Irish Archaeological Wetland Unit, a body based at University College Dublin that undertook systematic survey of bogland across the Irish midlands, a region exceptionally rich in these submerged traces of movement and daily life.
