Messages from the Bog

Note:
I've since decided to move my writings to a dedicated space, so please visit me on my growing Substack page where I regularly post musings written from an ecocentric and decolonial perspective.

Bogland in Glendun, County Antrim

Bog, also known as moor, peat(land), marsh(land), fen... These names bear a slight difference in meaning depending on what type of vegetation is prevalent, yet they all instantly bring up the same associations - that of a barren land, brown and dull, one that is of no use to modern man. One that gives many an urge to transform it into what we can use; maybe a new plot for a housing estate, or indeed a building site for yet another shopping centre?

To many a passerby the bogs look like a dead landscape at first glance. Dark, soggy and wet as far as you can see - our human mind easily connects such occurrences to something unwelcoming, sinister. Countless stories about the dangers that lurk in bogs have been made in Ireland and elsewhere, in all Celtic, Saxon, Norse and Baltic lands. Many a poor child drowned in their murky waters, hidden beneath treacherous grass that tricked them into expecting solid soil beneath. Perhaps they were led off the path by a mischievous will-o'-the-wisp?

Not quite water, not quite land, the bog is an in-between place. A liminal place; a hedge between the worlds. Human mind doesn't do well with uncertainty that fills us with fear and horror - and bogs are the very epitome of uncertainty. One wrong step and instead of landing on an ankle-length patch of heather, you will sink knee-deep into a mucky hole, filled with black disintegrating mossy substance that thickens around you. Who knows what's beneath this dark, slimy surface? The very look at these never-ending plains of the unknown made many uncomfortable since ancient times. Who knows what exactly did our ancestors have in mind, respecting the bog - or perhaps, venerating or pleasing the spirits who inhabited this liminal place - when they laid their offerings into the bog? Bent weapons, intricate cauldrons, buckets of butter... Human sacrifices we nowadays unearth as "bog bodies". Shall we ever fully comprehend the true motivation behind these practices, or is it forever lost to our modern mind?

Yet the ominous looking bog is anything but dead. In almost total absence of forests in today's Ireland - especially native forests! - following centuries of colonial exploitation, it is the bog, together with hedges, that have taken over the role of the forests. The role of growth, of supporting life and making life flourish. In today's Ireland, and indeed for centuries before our time, bogs and hedges are the key to the Irish ecosystem, providing home and shelter to the majority of our wildlife.

Since times long forgotten, Irish people tried to put the vast peatlands to good use. The soggy land was no good for building and living on it, but it provided a key everyday essential - fuel. Cutting peat or cutting turf is an activity that is quintessentially Irish. Older generations will often talk about turf with a tear in their eye and longing in their voice. Endless hours spent on bogs cutting and bagging the turf, endless hours spent by the fireplace, soaking up the peculiar scent of burning turf. In old, heavily agrarian Ireland, already largely stripped of her woodlands, turf was the only means of heating one's home and cooking meals. The romantic picture of a kettle hanging over the open fire in a typical Irish cottage is impossible without it being accompanied by the characteristic scent of turf. It has been done for thousands of years and it will be done for thousands more.

However, the reality is that damaging or destroying peatlands is doing us more harm than good. Namely, bogs store enormous amounts of carbon accumulated over tens of thousands of years. Draining the bogs to convert them to farmland or timber plantations (consisting of non-native conifers planted purely for commercial reasons) and cutting them for turf not only destroys the ecosystem, but also releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In today's world when we even talk about technological solutions to trap carbon emissions, releasing more carbon is a big red tape. Turf cutting in Ireland is today heavily controlled, after steadily growing into a big commercial endeavour for decades. Despite opposition coming from the turf industry, there's now a distinction being made between large-scale machine cutting and small-scale manual cutting, the latter of course being far less damaging for the environment. Yet any, even the smallest damage means that thousands of years will be needed for the bog to restore itself. It is unlikely turf cutting for personal use will ever totally stop, but every effort should be made to educate the public about sustainability and preservation.

Sheep and blooming bog cotton in summer, County Antrim

Every Irish person, no matter where in the world you talk to them, will have a spark in their eye when you mention the scent of a turf fire, yet the hope remains they will have an even bigger spark when you mention the land itself. What if we could raise our children to lighten up when you mention not the scent of turf fire, but observing the blackbird pecking on hawthorn berries in the hedge?

The endless bogs coloured with patches of purple heather bloom, speckled by snow white blossom of bog cotton.

Native hawthorns standing in the middle of the fields, short but proud, hosting fairies and safeguarding the Otherworld.

Red-breasted robins singing in the hedges while a large badger burrows under the roots.

Dewdrops glittering under the first rays of morning sun, slowly dripping off cobwebs veiled all over gorse bushes.

Incredibly vivid shades of green stretching for miles and miles, more often than not basking in tiny raindrops and sunshine at the same time, which creates a rainbow that takes your breath away even though you see it almost daily.

It is necessary for turf cutting to stay on a very small scale while recognising that turf is - even though traditional and loved - one of the least efficient fossil fuels, one that emits high levels of carbon dioxide per unit of energy used. It is crucial to embrace that the importance of bogs for biodiversity, flood management and storing carbon comes before the cultural importance of bog cutting. Holding onto one's cultural traditions is indeed tremendously important for one's identity - yet if we let any tradition harm the very environment that gave life to it, what have we actually achieved? By trying not to lose ourselves, we will lose what makes us us.

Seamus Heaney, one of the greatest Irish voices, once wrote of bogs: "To this day, green, wet corners, flooded wastes, soft rushy bottoms, any place with the invitation of watery ground and tundra vegetation, even glimpsed from a train or a car, possess and immediate and deeply peaceful attraction. It is as if I am betrothed to them, and I believe my betrothal happened one summer evening, thirty years ago, when another boy and myself stripped to the white country skin and bathed in a moss-hole, treading the liver-thick mud, unsettling a smoky muck off the bottom and coming out smeared and weedy and darkened. We dressed again and went home in our wet clothes, smelling of the ground and the standing pool, somehow initiated."

For some who cut turf for personal use today, this activity is the last proper interaction with nature they have. What we as a society and individuals need is to look deep inside us and nurture a mindset of being one with the Nature again, of being just a small cog in a wheel we don't possess - it will turn with or without us, unpredictable, complex, primordial and wild; just like the bog. A mindset of rewilding that will allow us our own initiation.

For it is the land itself, not any activity that stems from using that land, that makes the Irish Irish. The ancient soil that still speaks the tongue of the Cailleach - if only one chooses to listen and hear.