Road - class 3 togher, Cloonfore, Co. Longford

Co. Longford |

Roads & Tracks

Road – class 3 togher, Cloonfore, Co. Longford

What looks like a scattering of old sticks in a midlands field turns out to be something rather more considered: a togher, an ancient trackway built from brushwood laid across boggy ground to allow passage where the earth would otherwise swallow a traveller whole.

The example found at Cloonfore in County Longford is modest in scale, just over eleven metres of exposed length and a little over a metre wide, but the method behind it is precise. Bundles of small branches and twigs, some only a centimetre or two in diameter, were laid longitudinally in at least two tight layers, with occasional pieces crossing at angles to provide additional stability. The whole structure ran on a northwest to southeast alignment, though one section turned more sharply, suggesting the builders were navigating around something, perhaps a particularly soft patch, or following a route already worn by use.

The trackway was identified in two sections, recorded separately as 19A and 19B, lying roughly ten and a half metres apart. The western portion, 19B, was the slighter of the two, just a few brushwood pieces surviving in a narrow exposure. The eastern section, 19A, was more substantial, found directly on the field surface beside a drain, and it was in the process of being destroyed by milling. Peat milling, which strips the bog surface mechanically to harvest fuel, had already lowered the level of the surrounding fields, bringing the ancient material up into reach and, in this case, into the path of machinery. The larger brushwood pieces noted within 19A may have belonged to a heavier substructure beneath the finer layers, a common feature in togher construction where a base of stouter timber provided a firm foundation before the walking surface was laid on top.

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