Bring Back the Bogs

By Johnny Kilroy on March 18, 2010 From Restoration campaign

Restoring dirt?

Coillte Teoranta, the Irish Forestry Board, has been working with the EU since 2002 to restore 1400 acres of raised bog in the midlands and about 334,000 acres of blanket bogs in the western coastal regions. 

What for?  Don’t bogs suck?


(Blanket bog near Macgillycuddy’s Reek.  Photo:  Dr. Charles Nelson.)


To a young, pub-happy American traveler, the peat bogs of central Ireland may not look like much more than a soppy prairie.  They’re acidic, and have few nutrients.  But they’ve been quite important in the history of the Old Sod, from energy use, to folklore, to warfare. 

There are two chief bog types in Ireland:  raised bog and blanket bog. 


(Image:  Irish Peatland Conservation Council.)

Like any resource, they’ve been used-up and degraded.  Peat harvesting, afforestation, and agriculture have eliminated an estimated 85% of the area they once covered.


(Harvested peat, County Claire.  Photo:  Mark Waters.)


The main goal of the restoration projects is to “reverse degradation,” by blocking drainage, eliminating invasive forest, preventing overgrazing, and restoring the hydrological balance.  (See how they do it.) 



(Photo:  Fiona MacGinty.)

Fuel

Some people are familiar with peat as a burned fuel.  Like a very low grade version of coal, it is simply organic matter that has decomposed and accumulated over centuries. 

In a country that spent many centuries in earth-bound subsistence living, peat was an invaluable local energy resource for residential and commercial users.  Said Fiona MacGinty, who lives right next to a bog, “You can’t beat the smell of a turf fire - no doubt about it.”

But peat’s virtue has largely led to its decimation.  Only about 8% of Ireland’s original raised bog and 18% of its blanket bogs remains, according to Coillte Teoranta. 

There is hope for restoring what’s left, though. 

Bord na Mona Energy, a company that produces Ireland’s peat reserves for electricity generation, reported in 2001 that peat’s contribution to the country’s grid dropped 59% since 1975.

Ride through the Countryside

Don, a sprightly tour bus driver from Belfast, delighted in giving history lessons to his passengers as he took them across his beloved isle.  It’s an Irish nuance - performance artists sprinkled in amongst the general population.  Don was a regular Alfred Byrne.

Rambling past the peat bogs of Westmeath, he told some colorful and enlightening stories about them. 

There was once a pub erected out in one bog, Don said, and patrons would make their way to it by lantern light, over a causeway.  From time to time, passersby would see a tiny lantern light stagger out of the distant pub, stagger along the causeway, and… disappear.

Ireland also has a long and bloody history of guerrilla warfare with Britain.  The bogs played a crucial strategic role for hiding caches of weapons during these conflicts, Don said.

In summary

There’s more than meets the eye in a bog.  “Bog…” man, even the name sounds crappy. 

It reminds me of a “Simpsons” episode, in which Homer wonders if “crab grass” might have gotten a better rap with a name like “elf grass.”  Flanders agrees.



(Raised bog.  Photo:  Sharon Loxton.)

Bogs are intricate wetland systems that have an important role in Ireland’s energy use, watersheds, wildlife, pub life, and revolutionary history. 

The Irish Forestry Board is taking an active and progressive approach to restoring and protecting this iconic national resource. 

The world could use some more of that.

This was Bring Back the Bogs, an entry in our Restoration Campaign from March 18, 2010. It was filed under Rangeland

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