Footnotes

• Footnote: from the estate of the Rev Con Auld. In the 1970s Rev Auld was driving through rural county Fermanagh when he noticed a group of boys tending a bonfire. On closer inspection, it transpired that the firewood being used was a number of bog oak canoes which had recently been uncovered by contractors who were constructing a road. Anxious for this piece of Irish history not to be lost for ever, the Rev Auld negotiated a price for this canoe with this boys and drove of with it in his trailer.
  
  Rev Auld is best known as the former owner of 'Ireland's smallest church', an unlikely tourist attraction which the retired religious studies teacher and former mayor of North Down, built St Gobban's at his summer home in the coastal townland of Portbradden in the Sixties.
  
  In 1902 an oak logboat over 15m long and 1m wide, was found at Addergoole Bog, Lurgan, County Galway, Ireland, and delivered to the National Museum of Ireland. The Lurgan boat radiocarbon date was 3940 +/- 25 BP. T
  
  We would like to acknowledge the advice of Dr Greer Ramsey of the Ulster Museum with regard to this item.

Saleroom notices

• It has been suggested that this is a trough rather than a canoe. It has also been suggested that it is of later date than indicated and perhaps dates to the Iron Age, the sharp angles within the vessel being consistent the use of metal tools in its manufacture.