During one such intervention, a compact band of brushwood came to light in the opposing faces of a drain, a modest cross-section only 2.2 metres wide and about 0.2 metres thick, yet carrying the unmistakable signature of deliberate human arrangement. Most of the pieces were slender, roughly 2 centimetres in diameter, though five or six larger branches towards the northern end reached between 4 and 5 centimetres across. A few ran transversely underneath the rest at the southern end, suggesting a layered construction rather than random accumulation.

What makes this find quietly compelling is the absence of any toolmarks. There was no visible evidence of woodworking on any of the pieces, which distinguishes it from the more elaborate bog roads, or toghers, for which this part of the Irish midlands is well known. Corlea is already associated with one of the most remarkable ancient trackways in Europe, a 2,000-year-old Iron Age road preserved in the same boggy terrain. This brushwood deposit, recorded by Dunne in 1999, appears to be something simpler and more functional: the remnants of a platform, likely laid down to provide a stable surface over waterlogged ground. Peatland platforms of this kind were a practical solution in wetland environments, giving people somewhere firm to stand, whether for fishing, fowling, or accessing a nearby trackway or water source. The lack of shaped timber here may simply reflect the informal, utilitarian nature of the construction.