NUI, Galway.
Sir, - Michael Viney writes (Another Life, January 19th) that Munster has yielded the oldest pine timber in Ireland and that it is 7,500 years old.
I am sure Mr Viney will be pleased to know that he does not have to go outside his adopted Co Mayo, nor does he have to travel far from his home to reach the site which, to my knowledge, has yielded the oldest known Irish pine bog timber. To see this pine timber, however, he will have to travel into neighbouring Co Galway - to the Visitor Centre in Connemara National Park, where two pine trunks are on display.
Both were taken from beneath blanket bog in the townland of Carrowrevagh, near Carrowkennedy, western Mayo. The smaller of the two gave a radio-carbon date of 7780±20 BP (Before Present) which, when calibrated, translates to about 6550 BC. This date derives from a sample of wood taken from the outermost 45 rings, the trunk having at least 100 rings. This pine tree was therefore a mere sapling some 8,600 years ago.
A second, larger bog timber from the same townland, and also on display in the park, gave a radiocarbon date of 6250±20 BP (wood from the outer 10-15 rings dated), which on calibration gives a date of about 5200 BC. In other words, it is over a millennium younger than the smaller specimen but it is almost as old as that ancient pine that Mr Viney refers to in his interesting piece on ancient bog timbers in Ireland. - Yours, etc.,
Prof MICHAEL O'CONNELL,
Palaeoenvironmental
Research Unit,
Department of Botany,
NUI, Galway.