Gangways.—Some crannogs were connected with the shore by a wooden gangway supported on piles driven into the bed of the lake. The artificial island in the lake of Effernan, county Clare, affords a good example of this kind of passage. It has been often stated that the characteristic feature of Irish lake dwellings was their insularity, their complete disconnection with the land; yet it would be tedious to enumerate the many instances in which remains of both pile gangways and stone causeways have been discovered; although with regard to the latter it is quite possible that in some cases the so-called causeways may have been merely the stones that had been deposited around the base of the piles, to give solidity to the uprights supporting the footpath.[60] It has been suggested that these gangways, being under the water level, were meant to provide on sudden emergencies a means of secret access to the crannog, and that their oblique, sometimes even tortuous, course was for the purpose of preventing any but those accustomed to the submerged path from making use of it. Is it not more probable that the people who made it merely availed themselves either of a shoal or of the best foundation into which uprights might be driven? Wooden roads and causeways across the deep, treacherous morasses and soft miry banks with which lake dwellings were environed have been frequently discovered. A roadway, evidently made for convenience of the crannog in Loughnahinch, county Tipperary, was covered with a great accumulation of peat.[61] Another submerged roadway, constructed somewhat like an American corduroy road, was discovered in a bog between Castleconnell and the Esker of Goig, in county Limerick.[62] In the north portion of the Wexford estuary was a causeway that in ancient times connected Begerin to other islands; there were two rows of oak piles on which, apparently, had formerly been transverse beams.[63] In Duncan’s flow bog, Ballyalbanagh, county Antrim, was a wooden roadway laid on the surface of the black turf, level with stumps of deal corkers; this road was seven feet wide, formed of longitudinal oak beams sheeted with transverse planking of the same material. In the centre of the bog, where the foundation was soft ([fig. 6]), there were eight longitudinal beams, whilst in the firmer ground ([fig. 7]), near the edge of the bog, there were but three, one at each side and one in the centre. The roadway, with the exception of one log, was formed entirely of oak; holes worn in the oak planking had been mended ([fig. 8]) with pieces of deal fixed in position across the aperture. “On the roadway there are now five feet of uncut turf, while ten feet of ‘good turf’ are said to have been cut away. Over the good turf there must have been ‘white turf’ and clearing, which would add at least about five feet more to the thickness of peat over the cash,” or roadway.[64] A paved causeway, covered to the depth of eight or nine feet with bog, leads down to what used to be the edge of the water, at Kilnock crannog, county Antrim.[65] On an ancient wooden causeway or road in Ballykillen Bog, barony of Coolistown, King’s County, a remarkable axe, formed of bone ([fig. 9]), was found seven feet below the then surface of the bog; the axe is eight inches long, and the sharp cutting edge at the small extremity had been formed by an oblique cut of the bone. With it was a flint arrow-head ([fig. 10]) in a briar-root shaft, the thong which tied it still adhering.[66] Remains of cut reeds, ferns, heather, and sand or clay, are very frequently found strewn on the roads thus leading into crannogs.
Fig. 7.
Section of roadway in firm ground.
Fig. 8.
Plan of roadway, showing repairs.