Road - class 2 togher, Cloonbreany, Co. Longford

Co. Longford |

Roads & Tracks

Road – class 2 togher, Cloonbreany, Co. Longford

Beneath the boglands of Cloonbreany in County Longford lies a stretch of ancient roadway that has not seen daylight in over three thousand years.

It is a togher, the Irish term for a trackway built across wet or boggy ground, and what makes this particular example quietly remarkable is the precision with which we can now place it in time. Radiocarbon dating puts its construction somewhere between 1433 and 1319 BC, placing it firmly in the Bronze Age, when the midland bogs were a persistent obstacle to movement and communities developed sophisticated solutions for crossing them.

Recorded in 1986 and catalogued as Corlea 4 in Brian Raftery's survey of Irish trackways, the togher runs roughly east-northeast to west-southwest for some sixty metres, with a width of at least two metres and a depth of around twelve centimetres. It was built using longitudinal brushwood and roundwood, meaning the timber was laid along the direction of travel rather than across it, a construction method classed as Class 2 among Irish toghers. The famous nearby Corlea Trackway, also in County Longford and now partially preserved in a dedicated interpretive centre, was built using heavy oak planks laid transversely, which gives a sense of how varied these bogroad traditions could be. The Cloonbreany example is altogether more modest in material, but no less deliberate in its engineering, and the fact that the bog preserved it well enough for accurate radiocarbon dating speaks to just how effectively waterlogged peat locks organic material in place.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Road – class 2 togher, Cloonbreany, Co. Longford. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement