During a field survey in 1988, pieces of worked wood were recorded in the peatland, the kind of discovery that can set an archaeologist's mind racing. Worked wood in a bog context is significant because the waterlogged, oxygen-poor environment of a peatland preserves organic material that would long since have rotted away in ordinary soil, meaning timbers shaped by human hands can survive for centuries or even millennia in near-perfect condition.

The find was noted by Barry Raftery, published in 1990, but the conclusion drawn was a cautious one: the evidence fell short of what would be needed to classify the site as the remains of an archaeological monument. That is not the same as saying nothing happened here. It means the fragments were too ambiguous, too sparse, or too unclear in their arrangement to confirm deliberate construction, whether a trackway laid across boggy ground, a platform, or some other structure. Irish wetlands have yielded extraordinary examples of all of these, which is precisely why surveyors were looking in the first place. Annaghbeg simply did not give enough away.