Structure - peatland, Edercloon, Co. Longford

Co. Longford |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Structure – peatland, Edercloon, Co. Longford

In the boglands of Edercloon in County Longford, archaeologists recorded something that might easily pass for debris but almost certainly was not: a small, deliberate deposit of brushwood laid out in the middle of a stretch of ancient bog.

Three pieces of brushwood and a single twig, arranged in an irregular spread measuring roughly two and a half metres long and half a metre wide, and sitting just ten centimetres above the surface of an older trackway below.

That underlying structure is a togher, the Irish term for a wooden trackway built across boggy or waterlogged ground, typically constructed by laying split timber, planks, or brushwood across the soft surface to allow people or animals to cross safely. The Edercloon togher had already been recorded separately, and this small brushwood deposit sat just above its central portion, suggesting some kind of relationship between the two, whether a repair, an addition, or something placed in connection with the route beneath. The brushwood itself, with individual pieces ranging from about one and a half to four centimetres in diameter, was in moderate condition when recorded, preserved as so much organic material is in the anaerobic environment of a peat bog. The details were published by Moore and O'Connor in 2009.

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