Gas workers find Bronze Age house

Work on a gas pipeline has uncovered the remains of a house dating back to 2,000 BC.

The find was made on a hillside at Kilmacanogue in the Wicklow Mountains.

Only eight similar discoveries have been made in Ireland.

The Bronze Age home was circular in style and is one of more than 20 sites from that era identified during pipeline work involving Bord Gais and a close-by road-widening project.

At first, archaeologists working on the site thought they had found only a cooking trough. But further digging revealed the full extent of the historical breakthrough.

The experts reckon the house originally has a thatched or cut wood roof supported by a wattle wall and timber posts.

The building - whose construction period makes it a probable contemporary of England’s Stonehenge - extended for around 1,150 square feet and had an outstanding view of Wicklow’s Sugar Loaf mountain.

It would have housed as many as 100 people on occasions, the archaeologists say, and could have been in use as a community hall with possible religious links.

One Dublin estate agent has estimated the value of a house on the location at around £400,000 at today’s prices.

Archaeologist John O’Neill said: ‘‘When we partly reconstructed the house it felt like being inside a stone circle.’’