One of them, however, is different. At its northern end, wooden stakes protrude from the ground, marking it out as something older and stranger than a twentieth-century service track.

This road is a togher, a word used in Ireland for a timber trackway laid across boggy or waterlogged ground, a tradition that stretches back thousands of years. Builders would drive stakes or lay timber to create a stable surface where ordinary walking or carting would otherwise be impossible. The Clooncannon example runs for 88 metres in a roughly north-north-east to south-south-west direction, averaging about 1.6 metres in width, and terminates at a small pond. It sits among several grass-covered bog roads that share the same general north-south alignment, all of them serving the same practical purpose of reaching the turf. What sets this one apart is that the wooden construction is still visible, at least at the northern end, suggesting a method of building that predates the stone-and-gravel approach used elsewhere in the same area. Whether the wooden stakes represent a significantly earlier phase of activity, or simply a different builder's preference, is not recorded, and the bog, being an exceptional preserver of organic material, has simply held onto the evidence longer than most landscapes would.