This was a great read. It was educational for me, which I think was your goal. Cutting turf is one of my cosy childhood memories, I had never thought of it as an interference with the land. It was, of course. But I was maybe five to ten years old when my family would set off with sandwiches and lucozade under the summer sun, when I would feel useful and part of something as my little boddy shucked and turned, as I glowed under the praise of my parents. My heaps of turf were always the neatest.
In the physical world, I only know the bog in summer, the dry bog, the cut bog. I think it's only in literature that I know the wet muddy land, although it feels as though I have lived there. Perhaps its in my blood, the ancestors and so on.
My childhood was at times very dark, but I loved the land and was lucky my parents chose such a beautiful place to raise me. Other memories are of staring endlessly across the Atlantic, herding cows with my neighbours, playing hide and seek in the fields, jumping on bails of hay, making blackberry jam. I'm from south west Kerry, the Iveragh peninsula, a truly beautiful place. When I go home in adulthood, I find family hard. But the land is always there waiting to cradle me. I wrote a little prose/photo piece the last time I was there which you might like to read: https://honestlywritten.substack.com/p/slan-abhaile
Such synchronicity! The day before this deeply evocative essay appeared in my Inbox, I attended a performance of Luke Casserly’s “Distillation,” which gives voice and presence to the bog for those who cannot visit it in person (as I have, more in Scotland than in Ireland, often with mired boots but always full of awe). It has a few more performances in Albany, NY, and Toronto this month. Each attendee goes home with a small vial of perfume distilled from the bog, and mine will be cherished and uncapped when I need a whiff of that kind of wild.
Enjoyable and fascinating read, Ramona. So glad you shared it. I was down in the Mournes yesterday and noticed a little side road called 'bog road' that I hadn't seen before and it reminded me of how intertwined bogs were once with everyday life here, the sense of nostalgia but also the necessity now to protect the boglands for so many reasons. Grateful for the words you are sharing here.
Thank you so much, Kelly! Sorry, I'm only catching up with comments and newsletters today as I had to slow down with the Internet for a few days for health reasons.
Bog road! That sounds lovely. I'd really like to explore the Mournes this summer, weather and (especially) children permitting! The Mournes are such a magical landscape.
Ramona, no need to ever apologise for living your life on your own terms. If you would like some inspiration for getting into the Mournes with or without children check out my writing at wildwordsbykelly.co.uk
There’s a ton of stuff there and if I can be of any help, just give me a shout, always happy to talk about the Mournes! Wishing you well x
This is extremely interesting to me because I was unaware of what a bog is, though we have a lost of marshlands in Indian subcontinent but never encountered a bog! It sounds like a sacred place to venerate power of nature because it refuses to have a perfect state of matter that our minds can understand.
Your analysis about the trend of transforming apparent ‘wastelands’ into something profitable is so important because this idea is a remnant of a colonial way of looking at landscapes as inert objects devoid of any spiritual significance which straightforward dejects the indigenous ways of looking at land as sacred. Amitav Gosh talks a lot about it in his book ‘The Nutmeg’s Curse’. I found this to be true with my analysis of the Nilgiris too. Also this also indicates how capitalism is an extension of imperialism and continues to be idealise similar values but with slightly different mechanisms.
This is such a fascinating post especially as you included the historical significance.
All the time I was reading I was thinking about one of Seamus Heaney’s poems I read years ago.
The identity of the Irish being inextricably bound to the land imo is a Celtic thing.
The Scots and Welsh feel the same. And so do I, one of the Dumnonii who inhabited the peninsula from the most westerly tip of Kernow all the way up to Southern Somerset.
It’s a very powerful feeling. I am a part of the land and the land lives within me. It’s when you get out in nature that you come back to yourself.
I’ve been thinking and trying to learn a bit about marsh and bog-lands as edgelands, between spaces, so it has been wonderful to read this piece today. I have clear memories of cutting turf with my dad as a child… (we rented a small plot in Wicklow that we harvested each year for winter fuel) no awareness of the damage at the time, but my memory is not of the fire smell but of the experience of being on the land in that way, the special energy that ancient soil had, of falling into sink holes, of the smell of the heather & gorse, of the sky….
I love that sentiment! Small scale, mindful cutting. Let's face it, it's necessary on an island without other natural sources of fuel. We can't avoid the damage because the choice is between local sources and swapping them for imported ones that do the damage somewhere out of our sight... We can only dampen the blow as much as possible. Unfortunately, the majority of people I've encountered approach turf cutting mechanically, with a sense of entitlement.
Good article that goes to show that traditions are derived from necessity and not necessarily for the good of the land. Bog cutting likely started from the necessity of staying warm and cooking food after the trees were nearly all gone. On an island with a lot of people, trees can't reproduce fast enough to keep the people satisfied. Then it gets worse when the trees are cut down and shipped off for someone else. The British did the same thing in North America. Their descendents are still doing it now.
A very interesting essay on bogs or peatlands. I had not realized that Ireland has so little trees. I have looked up the history of how Britain used the trees from Ireland for shipbuilding and thus cut down all the best trees.
I can see why peat and the memories of its use would be important for the Irish. And yet for environmental reasons, bogs must remain untouched as a natural carbon sink. It is where history rubs against the future.
This was a great read. It was educational for me, which I think was your goal. Cutting turf is one of my cosy childhood memories, I had never thought of it as an interference with the land. It was, of course. But I was maybe five to ten years old when my family would set off with sandwiches and lucozade under the summer sun, when I would feel useful and part of something as my little boddy shucked and turned, as I glowed under the praise of my parents. My heaps of turf were always the neatest.
In the physical world, I only know the bog in summer, the dry bog, the cut bog. I think it's only in literature that I know the wet muddy land, although it feels as though I have lived there. Perhaps its in my blood, the ancestors and so on.
My childhood was at times very dark, but I loved the land and was lucky my parents chose such a beautiful place to raise me. Other memories are of staring endlessly across the Atlantic, herding cows with my neighbours, playing hide and seek in the fields, jumping on bails of hay, making blackberry jam. I'm from south west Kerry, the Iveragh peninsula, a truly beautiful place. When I go home in adulthood, I find family hard. But the land is always there waiting to cradle me. I wrote a little prose/photo piece the last time I was there which you might like to read: https://honestlywritten.substack.com/p/slan-abhaile
The situation with bogs in Scotland is very similar in many ways, excellent essay, thanks.
Such synchronicity! The day before this deeply evocative essay appeared in my Inbox, I attended a performance of Luke Casserly’s “Distillation,” which gives voice and presence to the bog for those who cannot visit it in person (as I have, more in Scotland than in Ireland, often with mired boots but always full of awe). It has a few more performances in Albany, NY, and Toronto this month. Each attendee goes home with a small vial of perfume distilled from the bog, and mine will be cherished and uncapped when I need a whiff of that kind of wild.
https://www.lukecasserly.org/work#/distillation/
https://www.solasnua.org/news/distillation-tour
https://youtu.be/wCVI4pCw06c?si=zkMEXIpnfWntclZF
Enjoyable and fascinating read, Ramona. So glad you shared it. I was down in the Mournes yesterday and noticed a little side road called 'bog road' that I hadn't seen before and it reminded me of how intertwined bogs were once with everyday life here, the sense of nostalgia but also the necessity now to protect the boglands for so many reasons. Grateful for the words you are sharing here.
Thank you so much, Kelly! Sorry, I'm only catching up with comments and newsletters today as I had to slow down with the Internet for a few days for health reasons.
Bog road! That sounds lovely. I'd really like to explore the Mournes this summer, weather and (especially) children permitting! The Mournes are such a magical landscape.
Ramona, no need to ever apologise for living your life on your own terms. If you would like some inspiration for getting into the Mournes with or without children check out my writing at wildwordsbykelly.co.uk
There’s a ton of stuff there and if I can be of any help, just give me a shout, always happy to talk about the Mournes! Wishing you well x
This is extremely interesting to me because I was unaware of what a bog is, though we have a lost of marshlands in Indian subcontinent but never encountered a bog! It sounds like a sacred place to venerate power of nature because it refuses to have a perfect state of matter that our minds can understand.
Your analysis about the trend of transforming apparent ‘wastelands’ into something profitable is so important because this idea is a remnant of a colonial way of looking at landscapes as inert objects devoid of any spiritual significance which straightforward dejects the indigenous ways of looking at land as sacred. Amitav Gosh talks a lot about it in his book ‘The Nutmeg’s Curse’. I found this to be true with my analysis of the Nilgiris too. Also this also indicates how capitalism is an extension of imperialism and continues to be idealise similar values but with slightly different mechanisms.
This is such a fascinating post especially as you included the historical significance.
All the time I was reading I was thinking about one of Seamus Heaney’s poems I read years ago.
The identity of the Irish being inextricably bound to the land imo is a Celtic thing.
The Scots and Welsh feel the same. And so do I, one of the Dumnonii who inhabited the peninsula from the most westerly tip of Kernow all the way up to Southern Somerset.
It’s a very powerful feeling. I am a part of the land and the land lives within me. It’s when you get out in nature that you come back to yourself.
Andrea
Language Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh.
I’ve been thinking and trying to learn a bit about marsh and bog-lands as edgelands, between spaces, so it has been wonderful to read this piece today. I have clear memories of cutting turf with my dad as a child… (we rented a small plot in Wicklow that we harvested each year for winter fuel) no awareness of the damage at the time, but my memory is not of the fire smell but of the experience of being on the land in that way, the special energy that ancient soil had, of falling into sink holes, of the smell of the heather & gorse, of the sky….
I love that sentiment! Small scale, mindful cutting. Let's face it, it's necessary on an island without other natural sources of fuel. We can't avoid the damage because the choice is between local sources and swapping them for imported ones that do the damage somewhere out of our sight... We can only dampen the blow as much as possible. Unfortunately, the majority of people I've encountered approach turf cutting mechanically, with a sense of entitlement.
So good to find this in my Inbox Ramona, Iooking forward to reading it as a moss dweller and haunter.
And now I have - what a wonderful rich post. I shall be dipping back into it.
I'm very pleased you feel this way! Thank you so much for reading.
Good article that goes to show that traditions are derived from necessity and not necessarily for the good of the land. Bog cutting likely started from the necessity of staying warm and cooking food after the trees were nearly all gone. On an island with a lot of people, trees can't reproduce fast enough to keep the people satisfied. Then it gets worse when the trees are cut down and shipped off for someone else. The British did the same thing in North America. Their descendents are still doing it now.
Thank you, Ramona, fascinating to learn more about the Irish people’s relationship with bogs.
A very interesting essay on bogs or peatlands. I had not realized that Ireland has so little trees. I have looked up the history of how Britain used the trees from Ireland for shipbuilding and thus cut down all the best trees.
I can see why peat and the memories of its use would be important for the Irish. And yet for environmental reasons, bogs must remain untouched as a natural carbon sink. It is where history rubs against the future.