Donal Hickey: The enduring mystique of bogs

Working in the bogs we became familiar early in life with the curlew, the hare and the skylark

Turf cutting in 1947 in Nad.

That inimitable columnist of yesteryear, Con Houlihan, once described turfcutters as the “aristocrats of the moorland” because of their importance as providers of fuel to rural communities.

And now, with bans on fuels such as turf and coal looming under climate change measures, he would probably be writing an ode to bogmen. Always men as rarely did a woman catch a slean.