Our day 2 itinerary includes: Athlone – Corlea Trackway- Irish national famine museum- Irish museum of country life – Westport.

CORLEA TRACKWAY – (A timber trackway is a simple raised wooden walkway used as the shortest route between two places in a bog or peatland. They have been built for thousands of years as a means of getting between two points.^[1][2] Timber trackways have been identified in archaeological finds in Neolithic England, dating to 500 years before Stonehenge. Radiocarbon methods date them to be about 6,000 years old.)

The Corlea Trackway (Irish: Bóthar Chorr Liath) is an Iron Age trackway, or togher, near the village of Keenagh, south of Longford town, County Longford, in Ireland. It was known locally as the Danes Road.

The trackway is situated in an area which is the site of industrial-scale mechanised peat harvesting by the Bord na Móna, principally to supply the peat-fired power stations of the Electricity Supply Board. While today a generally flat and open landscape, in the Iron Age it was covered by bog, quicksand, and ponds, surround by dense woodlands of birch, willow, hazel and alder while higher ground was covered by oak and ash. The terrain was dangerous and impassible for much of the year.^[1]

Part of the recoveredtrackway

In 1984, timbers recovered from Corlea were radiocarbon dated to the Iron Age, rather than the Bronze Age as had been expected, and an archaeological project was established under the leadership of Professor Barry Raftery to investigate the site before it was destroyed by peat-digging. Excavations to 1991 in Corlea bog revealed 59 toghers in an area of around 125 hectares and further work has raised the total to 108 with a further 76 in the nearby Derryoghil bog.^[2]

The majority of these toghers are constructed from woven hurdles laid on heaped brushwood on top of the surface, built to be used by people on foot. Four, including Corlea 1, the Corlea Trackway proper, are corduroy roads, built from split planks laid on top of raised rails and suitable for wheeled traffic. The Corlea Trackway is made from oak planks 3 to 3.5 metres long and around 15 centimetres thick laid on rails around 1.2 metres apart. The road was at least 1 kilometre long. Dendrochronological study suggests that the timber used in construction was felled in late 148 BC or early in 147 BC and the road built then. Raftery estimated that the sleepers alone amount to a 300 large oak trees, or a thousand wagon-loads, with a similar volume of birch for the rails.^[3] The Corlea Trackway ended on a small island, from which a second trackway, excavated in 1957 and since radiocarbon dated also to 148 BC, again around 1 kilometre long, connected to dry land on the far side of the bog.^[1] The construction of the roadway required a great deal of labour, comparable to that used in the construction of ritual monuments such as barrows.^[4]

Wooden planks and nails

The purpose of the Corlea Trackway is uncertain. For the smaller toghers, O’Sullivan remarks that “there is a growing sense that these were not structures designed to cross the bog, but to get into the bog”.^[5] Massive structures such as the Corlea Trackway may also have served to get into the bog, perhaps for ritual purposes, rather than merely to cross it.^[6] Whatever its purpose, the roadway was usable for only a few years. Gradually covered by the rising bog and sinking under its own weight, it was covered by the bog within a decade, and perhaps less, where it remained preserved for two millennium.^[7]

The Irish Famine Museum

The Great Irish famine of the 1840′s is now regarded as the single greatest social disaster of 19th century Europe. Between 1845 and 1850, when blight devastated the potato crop, in excess of two million people – almost one-quarter of the entire population – either died or emigrated.

The Famine Museum is located in the original Stable Yards of Strokestown Park House. It was designed to commemorate the history of the famine of Ireland and in some way to balance the history of the ‘Big House’.

Whereas the landlord class had the resources to leave an indelible mark on the landscape, the Irish tenants lived in poverty and nothing of a physical nature has survived to commemorate their lives. The Famine Museum uses the unique documents that were discovered in the estate office, dealing with the administration of the estate during the tenure of the Mahon family. This collection includes many haunting pleas from starving tenants on the estate and the response they received.

WESTPORT

Westport Skyline with Clew Bay in the background.
Croagh Patrick, nicknamed the Reek, is a mountain and an important site of pilgrimage in County Mayo in Ireland. It is from Westport, above the villages of Murrisk and Lecanvey. It is the third highest mountain in County Mayo after Mweelrea and Nephin. It is climbed by pilgrims on Reek Sunday every year, which is the last Sunday in July. It forms the southern part of a U-shaped valley created by a glacier flowing into Clew Bay in the last Ice Age. Croagh Patrick is part of a longer east-west ridge; the westernmost peak is called Ben Gorm.

Westport (Irish: Cathair na Mart, meaning “stone fort of the beeves“, historically anglicised as Cahernamart)^[1] is a town in County Mayo in Ireland. It is at the south-east corner of Clew Bay, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean on the west coast of Ireland.

The town centre was designed by James Wyatt in 1780, in the Georgian architectural style. Its layout follows the medieval principles of urban design introduced by the Normans in the 13th century. The design for the town was commissioned by the Lord Sligo of the nearby stately home, Westport House, as a place for his workers and tenants to live. A particular feature is the incorporation of the river into the composition, contained for two blocks by low stone walls producing, on each side of the river, attractive tree lined promenades (The Mall) with several stone bridges over the river Carrow Beg. The layout further includes several tree lined streets, addressed by the narrow fronted commercial buildings typical of Irish towns, though with many here remaining of a singular refinement and charm. Some modern interventions, such as the Garda station, are less successful in maintaining the original continuity of the urban fabric.

It was the home of the pirate chief Grace O’Malley in the mid-to-late 16th century.

The famous pilgrimage mountain of Croagh Patrick, known locally as “the Reek”, lies some 10 km west of the town near the villages of Murrisk and Lecanvey. The mountain offers a striking backdrop to the town. The church on the summit can just be made out with the naked eye from Westport.

Westport is a popular tourist destination and scores highly for Quality of Life.^[2] It has also won the Irish Tidy Towns Competition three times in 2001, 2006 and 2008; in 2012 it also won the Best Place to Live in Ireland competition run by The Irish Times.