Archaeologists from University College, Dublin have still not unravelled the mystery of the strange paddles they have found at a midlands bogland site. The paddles, or primitive oars, were found at Clonfinlough, near Clonmacnoise, Co Offaly, during excavation of houses with a palisade around them, about two miles from the River Shannon.
But while the whole site is unique, the mystery revolves around the paddles, which are the largest discovered in Ireland from the late Bronze Age.
According to Conor McDermott of the Irish archaeological wetland unit, which is based at the university, the paddles are 2.7 metres long and were used for propelling or steering a large craft on water.
"One of the paddles recovered has a series of deliberately cut holes in it and the other has a Y shape at the top. They must have been used for a rather large craft," he said.
"But that creates another problem because the lake near the site was very shallow and it is over two miles from the Shannon River."
While dug-out canoes are very large and date from both before and after the late Bronze Age, this does not appear to be relevant in this case, he says.
"We recovered the oars resting on a door sill, which was dated by dendrochronology to about 886 BC, but there is no evidence of boats of that size from that era."
He added that the famous Broighter boat from Co Derry, which is made of gold, had an oar with a Y handle similar to the Offaly paddle, but it still would not explain the size of the craft or the method of propulsion.
"The perforations in the oars may have been put there to reduce drag or to achieve a faster stroke, but we simply don't know why the oars were treated in this way. "There are as many archaeologists as there are theories about them, but what we do know is that they are unique and some day we may even find the boat they were used to propel."
The paddles were made of ash roundwood and were carefully shaped.