They are almost certainly ancient, preserved by the same waterlogged, oxygen-poor conditions that have kept bog bodies, wooden trackways, and timber structures intact across Ireland for thousands of years. What they were for, nobody says with confidence.

The structure was recorded as part of the archaeological survey of West Cork, and the sparse description raises more questions than it answers. Parallel timber rows of this kind are sometimes interpreted as the remains of a togher, a raised wooden trackway built to allow movement across otherwise impassable wetland. Irish bogs contain dozens of such features, some dating back to the Bronze Age or earlier, constructed from split oak or woven rods and representing considerable communal effort. Whether this particular example served that purpose, or formed part of a structure with some other function entirely, is not stated. The University College Cork attribution in the original record suggests some degree of academic attention, but no further detail has been made public in the available material.

The site is recorded as inaccessible, which in bog terrain means exactly what it suggests. The ground around Garranes Lake is wet and unpredictable, and the planks themselves are submerged or semi-submerged. This is a place that exists more comfortably in the archaeological record than in any itinerary.