It is not a road in any modern sense, but a togher, an ancient timber trackway laid across wet or boggy ground to allow passage that would otherwise be impossible. The bog, which destroys so much, has in this case done the opposite, sealing the wood in waterlogged, oxygen-poor conditions that slow decay to almost nothing.

This particular togher belongs to what archaeologists classify as a class 3 type, meaning it consists of a single layer of roundwood rather than the more elaborate plank or post-and-rail constructions found elsewhere in Ireland's wetlands. The timbers, each between roughly six and eight and a half centimetres in diameter, were laid side by side in an east-west orientation, forming a surface just under two metres wide and around ten centimetres deep. That width is roughly enough for a person leading an animal, or for two people to pass with care. The roundwood itself, small-diameter branches rather than split or worked planks, suggests a practical construction, built with whatever material was close to hand in a landscape where ash, hazel, and birch would have grown along the bog margins. Toghers of this kind appear throughout the Irish midlands, where low-lying ground made overland movement difficult for much of the year, and they range in date from the Bronze Age through to the early medieval period.