A togher is a road or trackway built from timber, brushwood, or other organic material laid across waterlogged or marshy terrain, allowing people and animals to cross ground that would otherwise be impassable. They were constructed over many centuries, from the Bronze Age well into the medieval period, and because peat bogs preserve organic material so effectively, many survive in extraordinary condition underground, their wooden planks and pegs still intact after thousands of years.

The Glenaknockane togher is recorded as an archaeological monument, though the details of its construction, date, and precise extent remain unavailable at present. What can be said is that the landscape context is telling. Glen placenames in Cork and Kerry often indicate narrow, sheltered valleys with poor drainage, exactly the kind of terrain where a togher would have been a practical necessity rather than a civil amenity. These trackways were not grand public works but pragmatic local solutions, likely serving farming communities moving livestock between seasonal pastures, or travellers navigating routes that would otherwise dissolve into bog after rain.