It is not the kind of thing that announces itself. No standing stones, no visible earthworks, nothing that would catch the eye of a passing walker. Just a cross-section of carefully laid timber, preserved for an unknown length of time in the wet, oxygen-poor embrace of a peatland.

The platform came to light during a peatland survey conducted in 2006 by Archaeological Development Services, documented by Whitaker. It measured 3.54 metres in width and just 0.17 metres in depth, and was constructed from regularly laid roundwood elements, small-diameter branches ranging from three to twelve centimetres across, interspersed with occasional brushwood. Every element was orientated northeast-southwest, suggesting deliberate, organised construction rather than casual dumping of timber. Wooden platforms of this kind, sometimes called trackways or bog roads when they extend in length, were built across boggy ground throughout Irish prehistory and the early medieval period, allowing people or livestock to cross otherwise impassable terrain. The peat surrounding this example was moderately humified, meaning it had broken down to a middling degree, and was rich in Sphagnum moss with frequent inclusions of Calluna, the common heather plant, both of which are characteristic of a raised bog environment. That combination of waterlogged, acidic, and anaerobic conditions is precisely what kept the wood in such good condition after centuries underground.