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People of the boglands

For thousands of years the bogs, through their extraordinary preservative qualities have kept ancient remains intact that would have otherwise perished on dry land; such as the bodies of unwary travellers trapped in the bog, or prehistoric track ways; and sometimes even whole villages and farms.

The abundance of materials recovered from Irish bogs makes it possible to look into the lives of the people who lived in or near wetlands and to build a story of their settlements and way of life.

Travel and transport over the bogs

For the unwary and uninitiated bogs are treacherous places. Many stories have been told of travellers vanishing on the bogs as they tried to cross them. The large spongy and uneven surface of the bogs posed problems for communities settled on the bordering dry lands.

Bogs could sometimes be crossed on foot, by jumping from one drier hummock to another, but on many occasions and seasons of the year the bogs were impassable. The people spent much energy and time building track ways across the bogs so that villages on either side could link up.

Track ways were made from planks of wood, or they were made from thin branches that were woven together.

Unless the track ways were constantly rebuilt and raised in level, sooner or later the growing bog buried them. Over 200 track ways have been found in Irish bogs and are common in Counties Kildare, Leitrim, Galway, Longford, Meath, Offaly, Tipperary and Westmeath. In North-Western Europe, the construction of ancient paths and roads has gone on for 6,000 years.

Corlea: a bog roadway

One of the most impressive Irish track ways was found in Corlea Bog in Co. Longford. This track way dates to the Iron Age at 148 B.C. It was composed of oak planks, measuring 2.5m each, which rested on parallel pairs of long runners at right angles to the direction of the track way. In places the oak planks were secured by sharpened pegs of birch driven through mortices at their ends. The track way extended for a distance of almost 1km across the bog.

Bogs and bodies

Among the many objects that came to rest in the wet boglands, there are some that provide exceptionally detailed information about the past. This is because they were deliberately deposited directly into water under circumstances that assured their survival. The best examples of this phenomenon are the bog bodies.

Map of Irish bog body finds.
(Figure courtesy of the National Museum of Ireland)

Bogs can be treacherous places and it is likely that some of the bodies found in the peat were those of travellers who slipped into bog pools and were trapped. Some ancient bodies found in the peat were supposedly found clutching heather or sticks as if attempting to haul themselves out.

Other bodies found in bogs are deliberate burials. In Germany the bodies of a man, woman and child were found in a bog. They were fully clothed and laid upon animal hides, with bunches of flowers placed upon the bodies.

In Northern Ireland a woman's body was discovered in Drumkeeragh Bog in Co. Down in 1780. She was dressed in a woollen costume. Fragments of the clothing are in the National Museum.

Sometimes strangers who died in rural communities in the Middle Ages were buried in unconsecrated ground, and so were women who died in childbirth.

Many bog bodies have been found in Denmark and Britain, some a few thousand years old. Over 80 bog bodies have been discovered in Ireland since 1750. Many of these bodies were never examined in detail and most were reburied without study or were badly damaged. The majority of the bodies date to late Medieval or modern times although some date to the Iron Age.

The first time an opportunity arose to examine an Irish bog body in detail occurred in 1978 when a body was discovered in Meenybradden Bog, Co. Donegal.

Meenybradden bog body

The body of a young girl aged between 25 and 30 years old was discovered during hand turf cutting in Meenybradden Bog, near Ardara, Co. Donegal in 1978. The naked body was wrapped in a woollen cloak, of a style worn in the Middle Ages, which served as a shroud. The body had been carefully placed in a grave that had been dug in the bog about 1m below the surface.

Head of Meenybradden bog body.
(Courtesy of the National Museum of Ireland)

The body was examined by Dr John Harbison, the Chief State Pathologist at the time, in Ballyshannon Hospital. X-rays were taken and CAT scans were carried out to determine the state of the internal organs. The Dental Hospital took samples of the teeth for examination and tissue and hair samples were also examined. The body was in good condition, the upper half retained the skin. The short cropped hair, eyelids and eyelashes were well preserved. The stomach was not preserved. The cause of death still remains a mystery. No evidence of strangulation, poisoning, injury or possible death during childbirth could be found. A radiocarbon date acquired for a bone from the body was 1570 AD, an appropriate age for the style of dress worn.

If the cause of death is a mystery, so too is the reason why she was buried in the bog. It was a deliberate burial in the bog because it was so carefully done. The girl was lying on her back and orientated in an east-west direction. Perhaps the girl could not afford a decent burial in hallowed ground and she was secretly laid to rest in the bog. The body was sent to the Organics Conservation Laboratory in the British Museum for conservation by freeze-drying.

Gallagh bog body

A body found in 1821 at Gallagh, near Castleblakeney, Co. Galway and was radiocarbon dated to 2,040 years old, indicating that it belonged to the Iron Age. The body of a man lay at a depth of 3m in the bog. It was clothed in a deer skin cape which extended as far as the knees. It lay on its left side, slightly flexed at the waist and knees. The cape was tied at the neck with a band of willow rods. At each side of the body a wooden stake was placed at an angle. Each post was about 2m long and pointed apparently with a hatchet. The body was reburied and dug up several times to show people and it was not until 1829 that it was finally removed from the bog and presented to the National Museum.

It was not conserved at that time because the technology of freeze-drying which is used today had not been invented. The body was allowed to dry out, so that it has shrunk and the hair and stubbly beard have largely disappeared and only a few scraps of the cape survive. The presence of wooden stakes prove that this was a deliberate burial as this practice is known from Denmark, and is part of a ritual to pin the body firmly into the bog.

Further reading

The Bog People by P. V. Glob. (1977) Faber and Faber, London. Trackways through Time by Barry Raftery. (1990). Headline Publishing, Dublin.

O'Connell, C. (ed.) (1987) The IPCC Guide to Irish Peatlands. Irish Peatland Conservation Council, Dublin. Click here if you would like to order a copy

O'Connell, C. (1994) Peatlands and the Primary School Curriculum. Irish Peatland Conservation Council, Dublin. 144 pages. Click here if you would like to order a copy

O'Connell, C. (1992) Peatlands Education Pack - History Module. Irish Peatland Conservation Council, Dublin. 144 pages. Click here if you would like to order a copy

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