Attitudes to boglands seem to be changing

THE other day, I revisited a bog near the Cork/Kerry border where we used to cut turf to burn at home until about 35 years ago, writes Donal Hickey. 

At the entrance, I met a man returning from a walk with two dogs. We had neighbouring banks of turf at one time, so we chatted about times past and present and he told me to expect changes in the landscape after such a long absence.

What had once been open peatland was now overgrown with trees and I was soon walking through a forest, which blocked views of the towering MacGillycuddy’s Reeks away to the west. The topography had changed beyond recognition. Once familiar turf banks were no longer to be seen. A bog that we remember as being alive with nature and human activity at this time of year was lonely and eerily silent.