Westmeath filmmaker's TG4 series digs in to the secrets of Ireland's relationship with its bogs

A new four-part TV series that Westmeath filmmaker Manchán Magan has made for TG4 reveals that Ireland’s bogs are more than just big brown expanses of ground containing turf.

Manchán, who lives near Collinstown, takes viewers on a visually spectacular, informative and entertaining tour of the secret treasure of Ireland’s landscape, our peatlands in “An Fód Deireanach” (The Last Sod), which starts this Thursday, explores Ireland’s complex relationship with our peatlands.

Ireland is a bog superpower; we have the third largest amount of surviving peatland in the world. The bog is part of our culture and heritage; but these biodiverse habitats are under threat.

Covering 1/6th of the country our peatlands began to form 10,000 years ago. With many of the bogs in the rest of Europe already gone; today in Ireland we stand at a crossroads. Do we stop and take stock for future generations or do we keep digging until we come to the last sod?

Each of the four episodes concentrates on a particular aspect of our peatlands.

First up Manchán takes a look at climate change; can saving our peatlands help save the planet? He visits Bord na Móna, who say “the world is changing and we are changing with it”. Investigating where this leaves the average turf cutter, Manchán meets with campaigners who say that without turf cutting rural Ireland can’t survive.

During episode two, Manchán looks at the ecological importance of our peatlands. With Éanna Ní Lamhna, he learns that there is more to the bog than just turf; observing carnivores plants within a fragile ecosystem. He explores the healing properties of the bog, sampling a popular tonic for the Celtic curse, hemochromatosis.

Also in the series Manchán asks if we can strike a balance between the preservation of our peatlands and the preservation of our culture? We have a unique relationship with the bog, many of us would have vivid memories of a day on the bog, being attacked by midges after a back-breaking days’ work. But there was something magical about the landscape that drew us back. Not quite land not quite lake: the bog is an in-between world where Pucaí, Grogachs and Gouls ruled.

A source of inspiration for artists, poets, and writers from Paul Henry to Seamus Heaney. It's been a part of our fabric of society for centuries, always there, providing us with a fuel source to cook our food, heat, and light our homes. But Manchán asks if it isn't time we gave something back.

Investigating what lies in store for the bogs of Ireland, Manchán finds that managed properly, peatlands can provide so much for us, “a sod of turf is worth more to us in the ground than on the fire”.

Living bogs provide protection against floods, increase biodiversity, improve the quality and amount of our drinking water and they are our greatest natural ally in the fight against carbon.

Manchán questions whether it's time we cut our Fód Deireanach.

An Fód Deireanach, TG4 from 07/04/22 at 8.00pm

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