Crannog, Farranseer, Co. Cavan

Co. Cavan |

Settlement Sites

Crannog, Farranseer, Co. Cavan

In Farranseer Lough, a small body of water in County Cavan, there sits an island roughly ten metres across that no researcher has yet set foot on.

It is tentatively identified as a crannog, the term for an artificial or partially artificial island, typically built during the early medieval period as a defended dwelling place, constructed from layers of timber, peat, brushwood, and stone. The island appears on aerial imagery, tree-covered and quietly present, but it remains, as of late 2022, unvisited and unexamined.

The lough itself has shrunk considerably from its original extent. The 1908 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map shows the lake as a larger, teardrop-shaped body of water, measuring roughly 250 metres north to south and 180 metres east to west. Today it has contracted to a small rectangular pool, no more than 150 metres by 90 metres. The island appears only on that 1908 edition of the map, which raises its own quiet questions about what the landscape looked like before drainage altered the surrounding hydrology so dramatically. The site was first brought to wider attention by Anne-Karoline Distel, and the possibility that an undisturbed crannog sits within this now-diminished lake has not yet been followed up with any ground survey.

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Pete F
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