Crannog, Corglass, Co. Cavan

Co. Cavan |

Settlement Sites

Crannog, Corglass, Co. Cavan

Sitting roughly a hundred metres from the shore of Corglass Lough in County Cavan, a small, almost perfectly circular island measures about twenty-three metres across.

It is modest enough in scale, but that near-perfect roundness is the telling detail. Natural islands rarely form so tidily. This one is almost certainly a crannog, an artificial island constructed by human hands, typically by piling timber, stone, peat, and brushwood into a lake to create a defensible dwelling platform. They were built and occupied across Ireland from the early Bronze Age right through to the seventeenth century, and they remain one of the most tangible reminders of how early Irish communities organised shelter and status.

The lough itself sits in a quiet part of Cavan, and the island has been recorded on all editions of the Ordnance Survey maps, meaning it has been a known, if little-discussed, feature of this landscape for as long as systematic mapping has been carried out in Ireland. Beyond its dimensions and position, the physical record is spare. No excavation findings are attached to it in the available record, and no associated finds or named historical occupants have been documented. What remains is the island itself, its shape doing most of the talking.

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Pete F
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