What is recorded here

Island Mc. Coo is a small tree-covered crannog in Lough Rea, County Galway, where eelspears once pulled gunbarrels and bronze spearheads from the water. Kinahan described four oak canoes with prows turned shoreward and a failed attempt to lift one because it had rotted into two pieces. The lake may have hidden weapons seized after the 1798 rebellion, while the pile circle and canoe bones disappeared beneath reeds and forgetting.

In the SE sector of Lough Rea c. 170m from the shoreline. This small roughly subcircular island (c. 29m NE-SW; c. 27m NW-SE) is now overgrown with trees. According to Kinahan (1881-4, 228), it appeared to be 'surrounded by a circle of piles' and in the summer months 'gunbarrels and bronze spearheads' were said to have been brought up in the 'prongs of eelspears'. On the E side of the island 'traces of four canoes with their prows turned towards the shore' were noted. An attempt to raise one of them, 'a single-piece canoe of oak', failed because of its decomposed state and it broke in two pieces. Apparently the 'gunbarrels' were sunk in the lake in following the 1798 rebellion when all the guns around the country were seized and ordered to be destroyed. No trace of the 'circle of piles' was noted during a snorkel dive in the late 1990s(information from K. McDonald). Compiled by: Galway Archaeological Survey, UCG Date of upload: 7 January 2020

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