Road - gravel/stone trackway - peatland, Derrygarrane, Co. Kerry

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Roads & Tracks

Road – gravel/stone trackway – peatland, Derrygarrane, Co. Kerry

Beneath the peat bogs of the Iveragh Peninsula, old roads occasionally resurface where modern turf-cutting has stripped back centuries of slow accumulation.

On the lower southern slopes of Knocklomena mountain in Derrygarrane, two such stretches of ancient stone trackway have been exposed in this way, emerging from the bog as if the landscape had simply forgotten to bury them completely. What makes them quietly remarkable is the care evident in their construction: this was not casual paving, but deliberate road-making, preserved by the very bog that eventually swallowed it.

The first stretch runs roughly north to south, covers 86 metres, and measures up to 1.5 metres wide. It is laid with large flat slabs, with smaller square stones packed towards the centre, suggesting a conscious approach to drainage or load-bearing. It sits just north of the stream that flows from Lough Fadda to meet the Kealduff river, and disappears beneath uncut peat at both ends, meaning the full extent of the road remains unknown. A second stretch lies roughly 100 metres further north, intermittently visible across some 200 metres, and curves from north around to the south-west and then south. This section is less well preserved, averaging about 0.9 metres in width, though upright slabs placed along its edges as a kind of kerbing are still visible in places. Bog trackways of this type, sometimes called toghers, were a practical response to Ireland's waterlogged terrain, allowing people and animals to cross ground that would otherwise be impassable for much of the year. The date of this particular trackway is not firmly established, but such roads could belong to almost any period from the Bronze Age onward, and the peat that obscures them has, in its own way, protected the stonework from disturbance.

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