Turf cutting still kicking up dust and controversy in Ireland

When I speak to library patrons and book clubs, I often spend as much time talking about bogs as about the writing process. And I included Ireland's turf-cutting controversy in the opening chapter of my first book, Haunted Ground, way back in the mid 1990s:

Chilblains were the farthest thing from Brendan’s mind this unusually sun-drenched late-April morning. A steady westerly breeze swept over the bog, chasing high clouds across the watery blue of the sky, and teasing the moisture from the turf. Good drying today, his father would have said. Brendan worked in his shirtsleeves; his wool jacket, elbows permanently jointed from constant wearing, lay on the bank above his head. He paused, balancing his left arm on the handle of the upright sleán, and, with one rolled-up sleeve, mopped the sweat from his forehead, pushing away the damp, dark hair that stuck there. The skin on his face and forearms was beginning to feel the first pleasant tightness of a sunburn. Hunger was strong upon him at the moment, but just beyond it was an equally hollow feeling of anxiety. This might be the last year he could cut turf on his own land without interference. The thought of it burned in the pit of his stomach. As he clambered up the bank to fetch the handkerchief from his coat pocket, he searched the horizon for a bicycle.

That plot thread was prompted by some signs I'd seen posted on the roadside in east Galway while driving around on a research trip. 

Protesting the imposition of bog licenses, East Galway, around 1999.

I also included Special Areas of Conservation in The Book of Killowen, where one of the characters is cutting peat from the bottom of a protected bog, and selling it for use as a beauty product. There are a few spas in Ireland where you can sign up to soak in a peat-infused bath, which I actually had to try in the name of research, of course. More on that later (with pictures!)...

Just this week, there's more controversy, as turf-cutters near Killimor in County Galway are cutting with machines in defiance of a ban on cutting turf from their own plots. The European Union has designated the bog in question as a Special Area of Conservation, which means turf is not to be cut there. But the families have been cutting in the same bogs for generations, and resent what they consider government intrusion. Turf-cutting rights, called 'turbary rights' often accompany the sale or transfer of property and farmland.

The controversy is made all the more complicated by the fact that Bord na Móna, the semi-state body that's been in charge of Irish boglands, has been strip-mining peat in the endangered high bogs of the Midlands for a hundred years, and continues to do so. They cut loose peat by the ton, and burn it in power plants to generate electricity.

BnM has been slowing down, but only because all the bogs have been cut away, and there's nothing left. The power stations are closing, and so are the jobs that the peat extraction has generated for the past century. My husband Paddy worked on Bord na Móna bogs, as did his father. It was the best job going in many parts of the Midlands.

Christy O'Brien, my father-in-law, working out on the bog with his mate Tommy Wright.

You can read a VERY recent article about the scofflaws who cut peat from a protected bog in today's Connaght Tribune:

Turf wars re-ignite as cutters defy law
Thursday, 08 May 2014 07:00      Written by Ciaran Tierney
http://www.connachttribune.ie/galway-news/item/2830-turf-wars-re-ignite-as-cutters-defy-law

Thanks very much to Bridget Nicholson for sharing this article!

Sods of machine-cut turf from a County Offaly high bog, back around 2003.

BBC Documentary - "Open Country" - Ireland - Peat

Click to listen to a great documentary about the history and culture of Irish peatlands. Thanks to Dermot Kearney for finding this and passing it along.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01lv4p6/Open_Country_Ireland_Peat/

Fred Kearney, one of the people interviewed, has been our guide at the Corlea Trackway Centre in Longford. Here's Fred as he began our tour:

And a few more pictures of the Corlea Trackway, a 2,000-year-old bog road that was excavated about 20 years ago, and the boardwalk outside the museum, showing what the trackway might have looked like centuries ago. 

Near the trackway centre, people are still cutting turf for fuel...

The documentary talks about the controversy surrounding turbary rights, that is, the right to cut turf on your own property. It's an issue that's more and more pressing as Ireland's peatlands continue to dwindle, mostly because of industrial-scale peat extraction by Bord na Móna, the Irish Turf Board.

In HAUNTED GROUND, Brendan McGann, one of the brothers who discovers the red-haired girl in the bog, is worried that he won't be allowed to cut turf on his own land for much longer. 

Another from the 'I Don't Have to Make Anything Up' Department

Another set of human remains were discovered in early August in Cul na Móna bog in County Laois (Ireland). According to Ned Kelly of the National Museum of Ireland (who very kindly sat for an interview with me in April), the lower limbs may have belonged to someone who was a victim of human sacrifice a couple of thousand years ago. At first the archaeologists believed that the lower portion of the body was encased in a leather bag, but now they're trying to determine whether the 'leather bag' found with the body is actually its torso.

This is one of the very few Irish bog bodies discovered in situ, that is, in its original location, so it's a rare find indeed. More will be revealed as the archaeologists and forensic scientists begin their work.

IRISH TIMES story on the bog find

RTE news story on the Laois bog body

IRISH ARCHAEOLOGY article about recent bog bodies

THEJOURNAL.IE article on the Laois bog body

Another cask of bog butter found, in Tullamore, Co Offaly

Two turf-cutters have just discovered a wooden cask of bog butter outside Tullamore, Co Offaly that may be two to three thousand years old. Joe Clancy and his nephew Brian were cutting turf in Ballard Bog when they came upon what they described as 'a huge piece of timber.' They took it out with a spade, and found that it was bog butter in container.

The container has carved marks around the edges, a removable lid with handles and holes, possibly for carrying. It's about a foot in diameter, about two feet tall, and weighed just over 100 pounds. After going home and researching 'bog butter' on the Internet, Joe Clancy packed the container in wet peat and brought it home, and immediately contacted the National Museum of Ireland. Joe Clancy also remarked that the white substance inside the container still had a 'dairy smell.'

Or, as Seamus Heaney put it in his poem, 'Bogland':  'Butter sunk under / More than a hundred years / Was recovered salty and white.'

Andy Halpin, the archaeologist from National Museum who visited the site to take measurements and recover the specimen for further examination, said that tests would reveal how old the butter is, and speculated that it could have been buried in the Ballard area because it was on the ancient boundary between two territories.