Road - togher, Dromard More, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Roads & Tracks

Road – togher, Dromard More, Co. Tipperary

Buried 2.4 metres beneath the surface of a raised bog in Dromard More, County Tipperary, the remnants of an ancient timber road have been slowly giving themselves up to the turf-cutting machines that work the land.

What has emerged is a togher, the Irish term for a bog road or trackway, built to carry people and perhaps animals across terrain that would otherwise have been impassable. These structures are found across Ireland's midland bogs, and the engineering involved, though modest in its materials, is quietly precise: transverse planks laid across longitudinal beams, pegged into place with tapered wooden pins slotted through prepared holes near the ends of each plank.

The section examined here in May 1973 consisted of eight planks running on a north-south axis. The planks themselves were roughly dressed timber, averaging around 2.8 metres in length, and they rested on two under-beams running lengthwise, one of which had a circular cross-section of 0.12 metres and still retained its original bark at the time of inspection. The pegs anchoring the structure were small, rectangular in cross-section and tapered, measuring just 3 to 4 centimetres across. The landowner reported that other planks in the area tended to be around 2 metres long, each fitted with pins at either end. Machinery had already badly damaged portions of the trackway by the time it came to archaeological attention, and some exposed timbers had dried out, accelerating the deterioration. The bog had also yielded other objects over the years: a slipper and a shawl were recovered from the same area approximately forty years before the 1973 inspection, and both passed into museum custody, quiet reminders that the bog preserved far more than structural timber.

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 – togher, Dromard More, Co. Tipperary. 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