The Bog

   The bog is low lying between hills and woodlands, over a mile long and a half mile wide, stretching as it does from East to West.  It has sparse vegetation, scars from years of cutting the turf for fuel, and a road running through it.  Calling this partly paved, mostly potholed, and always struggling to survive ribbon of misery a road, is poetic license.  There are only two houses off of this road and one of them is my home.

   Several years ago there was a fire in the bog and all the heathers, wild grasses, bog cotton and various low growing shrubs and trees were destroyed.  The wild birds, foxes, pheasants, and hares disappeared along with the flora, the surface was blackened.  The fire brigade was there when I got home from work that summer evening and among the volunteers was a friend of mine.  There was little they could do except monitor the progress of the flames and make sure none of the peat stayed smouldering after the fires passed.  If the fire had turned towards the woodlands they would have had a struggle to contain it.

   Apparently someone a half mile away had started to clear some dead gorse bushes and torched the pile which got out of control.  Accidental as it was it left its' mark for years.  The grasses grew, the heathers sprung back and the animals slowly followed, not as many and varied as before, but they come to feed, nest, and hunt once more.

   The Bog Road is a popular short-cut for the locals to save a few miles when going from one town to another.  The bog is about halfway between Ballyghastly and Dunshaggin, which lie South and North of the bog.  And though this boreen saves them three or four miles of a journey, most try to do the Bog Mile in under a minute.  Any oncoming traffic must duck and dive to the sides into brambles and whitethorns to get out of the way as only one car can pass at a time.

   Three weeks of dry weather, sunshine, and frosty mornings have parched the exposed surface of the bog.  Her normally soft and supple outer skin has become cracked and blistered and resembles the back of an alligator.  But she will make a remarkable comeback, with a few showers of rain, as she has done again and again for thousands of years. 

   Hopefully, with the next rain, the bushes and trees on the verges of the boreen will sprout leaves and foliage and cover all the rubbish that has been left there over the years.  Good evidence that not everyone does the Bog Mile in under one minute.  In times gone by nothing was thrown away; but, since the advent of the Celtic Tiger we have become a throwaway society along with everyone else.

   There have been unusal things found preserved in bogs including people,  lumps of butter, tools, and clothes.  None of those items are on the fringes of my bog.  No, if the electric cookers, prams, bicycles, black bin bags, cans and bottles, and builders rubble remain for future inhabitants to find thrown into these precious wetlands, they will think we were pure eejits indeed.

*Before and after (or after and before?) pictures of Yde the Bog Girl.  The teenager, "Yde", had scoleosis, a curvature of the spine, and a deformed foot.  It is believed she was strangled 2,000 years ago because of her physical challenges. 

**Bog Bodies the movie, film trailer.