Archaeology

The list of recorded monuments for Westmeath shows four sites in and around the lake: the place of discovery of a logboat in the lake itself; an earthwork and crannóg in the townland of Shinglis to the northwest; and a large area described as a 'settlement', encompassing parts of the townlands of Mullaghcloe, Ballymore and Clonyveey, running south and south-eastwards from the lakeshore. Included within that area is some of the present village of Ballymore.

The logboat was discovered in July 1984 during a dive in the lake and was reported to the National Museum. In his assessment of it, Raghnall Ó Floinn indicated that it was 'most likely to be of early medieval date' because of its similarities with boats of that period found near crannógs elsewhere in Westmeath, in Offaly and in Meath. Animal bones were found in the boat including the jaw and shoulder bones of a pig, and the teeth and ribs of cattle. Ó Floinn suggested that they are 'food remains from the neighbouring crannóg'. The crannóg in Shinglis has not been excavated.

The area within the designated 'settlement' includes the site of the fortifications used in the seventeenth century (see below).

O'Donovan wrote in 1837 of a 'regular moat within this fort now a coney [rabbit] burrow' and questioned whether the English would have erected such a moat as late as the 1640s.

O'Donovan also referred to the digging-up of skeletons 'with their arms of valor about them, drums, balls, etc.' by people in the vicinity of the fort.