Colm O'Regan: Bog air should be bottled and labelled with fancy writing to be sold in delis

It is estimated that 103% of the Irish population have claimed to have spent summers on the bog (the same percentage incidentally who claim studying Peig put them off Irish)

Colm O'Regan reflects on his days spent at the bog

The Bog. There aren’t many places like it in Ireland. Where the land goes on for, if not forever, then at least quite a while. Last weekend was a good weekend to be on the bog and scratching my ‘beshortsed’ leg on a bit of bog heather brought back little dry sods of memory of similar scratches.

Last Saturday’s bog was at the Lough Boora Discovery Park in Offaly but we used to have a bit of bog up in, well the Boggeraghs. Up beyond Nad (for people living north of the 52 and a quarterth parallel, Nad is a real placename in Cork).