Síona Cahill: Precious bog traditions can’t be exploited to ignore climate crisis

If politicians were this worried about saving rural Ireland, you would wonder where all the post offices or public transport routes went, writes Síona Cahill

In a fortnight that produced another damning world climate report begging us to act, to invest, to wake up, Ireland instead spent its column inches and airwaves demonising the Green Party for even daring to cast an eye on a turf fire in concern, or allowing civil servants to consider how it’s operated.

Granny’s knobbly hands worked with deft precision, kneading the mix of grated raw potatoes and flour to make boxty as the wireless overhead blared a heady mix of bereavement notices and country music. 

The light trickled in through the small kitchen window as she worked, the trusty Stanley range behind her blasting heat onto fresh batches of soda bread “for the meitheal and the men”.

Even as a small blip of a young one, the neighbours coming together around the ‘bog-run’ at home is one of those core memories people strive to capture using Instagram clips.

For some, the clear recollection of it all is probably because they got burnt alive under the sun on the bog itself while they grimaced and stacked rows of peat to dry; for others it might genuinely be that intergenerational relationships were built with otherwise impenetrable fathers when it came to finding anything in common on a usual day.

Sitting astride a teetering load of turf dreaming of a ham sandwich and red lemonade could put all the world to rights, at least for an hour.

There’s a fierce nostalgia to it all now, particularly when grandparents or older people who were so close to that experience have passed on. There’s a particular affinity Irish people, particularly those in the midlands, have to the bog, to peat, to the land — and it’s not just the obvious physical bit involving all of our roads constantly sinking into it. 

It’s built into our DNA, in a way, the connection to each other, through family and tradition, of sustaining the household’s heat and life through collecting and burning peat.

In Longford, people have grown up in houses built by Bord na Mona for their workers in Lanesboro. The very fabric of the towns and villages in the midlands reflect the impact of the power source we have relied upon for so long. But now, ironically, I can’t help but feel that deep rooted connection is being exploited.

The very last thing that will make you popular at home in the midlands is to criticise the burning of turf. With headlines in the local papers comparing proposals on ending the sale of turf to being ‘akin to selling drugs on the street’ and local politicians practically buying their first megaphone to broadcast their disgust, it’s exactly the kind of distraction that uselessly sucks up the air we’re all supposed to be clearing of carbon. 

It’s the kind of parish pump immaturity that only responds to the short-term impacts and not the longer term impacts on our local and rural communities if we don’t support a transition to alternatives.

If Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael politicians were this concerned about saving rural Ireland, you would wonder where all the post offices or public transport routes went in the last few years.

In a fortnight that produced another damning world climate report begging us to act, to invest, to wake up, Ireland instead spent its column inches and airwaves demonising the Green Party for even daring to cast an eye on a turf fire in concern, or allowing civil servants to consider how it’s operated.

The most recent IPCC report set out clearly the evidence for rapid and deep greenhouse gas emission cuts, cuts that must be made this decade if we are to minimise our chances of exceeding a 1.5C temperature increase. The report also, rightly, calls for alternatives to be made available, and for supports to enable changing behaviours.

And change behaviours we must. No one wants to hear this, least of all a Government strapped for cash, because the kind of investment will not be painless for the exchequer.

Outrage, bluster, punny headlines, and angry Facebook status updates — in a week of Sundays, did we just entirely miss the point?

There was a burst of national politicians out quickly to condemn poor Eamon Ryan for casting aspersions over Ireland’s precious bog burning practices, from Leo Varadkar, the slickest of city TDs, to the personification of the rural TD, Barry Cowen. Press releases practically wrote themselves.

But when you step back, what has really happened? Instead of having a worthwhile assessment of how we’re going to retrofit and upgrade every single fossil fuel-reliant home within timely fashion, this hullabaloo was made into a fake rural-urban war about the protection of the family hearth, when we should be looking at what is actually and urgently needed.

We can’t have our earth and burn it too.

Bigger picture ignored

I love the bog. I adore the traditions, I recognise, as any sane person would, that fuel security and spiralling prices are a major and genuine concern for every house in Ireland right now. But we also can’t allow lazy political spin to foster the falsehood that it is acceptable every time we buy or use turf in our stoves.

Governments two decades ago knew we were running out of commercial peat to fire our power stations. They knew, as did local authorities, that we should have been upgrading and ensuring our homes retained whatever heat we did put into them.

Instead, we’re now told in 2022, with a resigned shrug, that the technology and alternatives aren’t ready, that “the Greens” are taking away our livelihoods, that environmentalists don’t mind if we are left cold and destitute.

The reality of the bigger picture has been ignored for years: Burning fossil fuels will impact negatively and equally on rural Ireland and beyond if we don’t proactively change our ways, and while we’re all busy remembering the past, we’ll wind up without much of a future to look forward to.

Of course we have to keep ourselves warm in the meantime, but we owe it both to ourselves and those coming after us to demand better from the people in charge, and, where possible, to be accountable as individuals.

Sure, you can blame China and the farting cows, but that’s a distraction and a lame excuse for lack of planning and the firm investment in, and commitment to, change which is needed right now.

The turf-selling debacle may be the latest in a string of poorly managed PR from our Environment Minister, which has made it easy to paint him as out of touch with real-life concerns, with his focus on shorter showers and slower speeds.

But while that might make for a good Twitter rant, it doesn’t fix the hot mess we’ve managed to get, and keep, ourselves in.

Síona Cahill, 29, is a former president of the Union of Students in Ireland and a regular radio contributor on current affairs on radio