Heather's travel notes: August 7 Ancient bogs!

A couple of days ago on our way vaguely northward to Dublin, we headed for a spot on the map, the ‘Bog of Allen’. We had no idea what it might be - other than perhaps a bog! - but it sounded intriguing. We went via Sally Gap in the Wicklow Mountains where we’d been the day before. It was a glorious drive! Along the way, we stopped at a number of spots but at one place, as soon as we stepped out of the car, we could smell the heather which took us both by surprise. It was heavenly, like smelling the lightest and sweetest of honeys. We spent some time just wandering, drinking in the breathtaking beauty and fragrance of the banks of heather and magic of the mountains.

But the bog .... We eventually found the Bog of Allen Nature Centre. It was fascinating. We had an enthusiastic young chap take us on a personal guided tour of the ‘museum’ which traced the formation of bogs and their place in the lives of the people who live near them and their importance to the environment. I reckon we were there (and in their garden) for close on two hours and learned so much.

Peat has special properties that enable it to preserve many things and this bog (a raised bog), like others, has revealed many valuable artefacts of archaeological significance. For instance, archaeologists have found wooden walkways constructed in prehistory and into the medieval period. These allowed people and animals to cross the extensive areas of peatland. They even found a large lump of butter 1000 years old which someone had put there, presumably to keep it cool. The bogs also preserve a range of palaeoenvironmental material such as pollen and plants. Other artefacts tell researchers much about the response of past societies to earlier changes in climate.

Today, rare and endemic species of insects, birds and plants are endangered as many of the bogs are drying up. This is due to a number of ‘practices’, mainly linked toimmediate economic concerns - power generation mostly, but also with agricultural/grazing benefits. I wonder how much the whiskey distillers harvest!? But there is a glimmer of hope for their future because there is a slowly growing number of concerned people. The Irish Peatland Conservation Council has purchased at least three bogs to try to preserve the uniqueness and importance of bogs. I won’t burble on, but it is interesting and disconcerting. It took Wilbert, a retired Dutchman, to really fire up the action, having seen how the destruction of the fens and bogs of the Netherlands had impacted his own country. The preservation centre is cared for mainly by volunteers, but the gardener I spoke to, Wilbert, looks after it, mainly on his own. It’s a big job. Enough! I love bogs.

We have seen quite a lot of large-scale peat cutting as we have travelled - mountain sides and extensive heathland crisscrossed with peat trenches. And in almost every village, we see the piles and bags of peat, as well as bags of munched-up peat for gardens. It is frightening when you consider that it takes at least a year for heathland to breakdown sufficiently to create 1mm of peat.

One last bit of ‘trivia’ - Lullymore Island is an island of arable land with a wee village totally surrounded by the Bog of Allen. It was chosen as a monastic site by St Patrick in the C5 because of its remoteness and inaccessibility. It existed until C17. But that’s a whole other story.

Glorious!

More fragrant heather

An extensive part of the hill has been dug away for peat. The trenches are not deep, but they represent the destruction of at least a couple of centuries of growth.

This stone with its etched cross dates back to the original monastery established by St Patrick and run by a Druid who he had converted to Christianity.