‘You can’t take the bog from the man’
During our recent spell of balmy and beautiful weather, I found my thoughts drifting back to the long ago days spent on the bog at this time of year. Those long glorious days, working away in peace and tranquility with the feeling of being at one with nature.
There lay the ritual of saving our year’s supply of turf. Not that us boys appreciated the work at the time; but looking back; those were the happiest of times.
‘Great day for the bog’, neighbours would greet each other with; as all the family, young and old worked as a team, each to their role as dictated solely by age. The most important job of all was usually undertaken by the mother; and that meant popping up with the tea and tomato or cheese sandwiches – all of which never tasted as good as that devoured on the bog.
We would rinse our hands in a boghole before eating, but Mammy always said it didn’t matter here, because ‘no germs lived in the bog’.
We lived only walking distance from our bog, but those coming from further afield would light a little fire to boil the kettle. Stoking the fire might be a girl’s job – or a ‘sensible’ young lad.
A week or so after cutting, the turf would be ‘tossed’ by hand; then ‘footed’ a week later and maybe ‘clamped’ a fortnight after that. This saving of the turf was of course weather dependent.
I often say that I was reared in the bog and proud of it. Some would have given that a derogatory tone back in the days of the black kettle and equally black pot. ‘You can take the man from the bog – but you can’t take the bog from the man,’ I was informed a few times. But who would ever want to take the beauty of the bog from the man, I ask you? To this day when I meet somebody on a hot day in Spain, and if I know they know what I am talking about, I would greet them with something like; ‘you’d save it off the spread in weather like this!’.
Today I just love the scent of the bog; the heather, furze bushes, drains teaming with ‘critters and creepy crawlies’. If I come across a freshly dug spot, the smell of the peat fills my lungs and I’m back again as a fourteen year old ‘barrowman’. I haven’t got around to it in my new home yet; but every house I lived in since I left Drumcree, I dug up a few tiny Birch trees from our old bog and replanted them in my garden. The Birch is a much underrated tree; looks great and adapts to any type of soil. Sorry … I tend to ramble … because you can’t take the bog from the man, I suppose!
Talking about being a 14-year-old barrowman; one July day in 1958, I knocked off early from a hard shift to go play a Chomortas na mBun Scoil hurling final in Cusack Park. I remember the jersey collar irritating the sunburn on the back of my neck. But what I remember most is scoring 3-2 and playing by far the best game of my life (never to be repeated!) and my father saying it was the bog air that did it!
I came back to the bog in a different manner several years later and made a business out of it for a while. I am not proud of that and I get a sinking feeling now when I drive the bog road. I brought in machinery and leveled it all; drains, bog-holes and natural habitats. Water-hens, snipe, hares, ducks, skylarks were all driven from their homeland. It probably would have happened anyway, because in those days, we were all ignorant to the importance of preserving our bogs.
But it is not all bad. I purchased one of the first ‘Diffco’ turf cutters and we went back to the bog. We gave summer work to 20 young lads saving the turf, filled Tom McCormack’s sandpit with dry turf and sold every sod to customers, bringing and filling their own plastic fertilisers bag at 50p a bag.
The second year I hit on an easier plan. I cut 30 acres of turf on the spread. Called an auction and sold it off in small plots. That was an unbelievable success. The bog road was as busy as O’Connell Street as the families came back to the bog. That was just such a wonderful summer in every way.
We later sold the bog to Coillte; it was planted with trees and is a new habitat for wildlife, flora and fauna.
A lot has changed ‘on the bog’ but my good memories have stood the test of time. We don’t burn turf any more; but having taken a second look at the chimney I was going to block off, I decided to leave it be – just in case I ever ‘go to the bog’ again!
Don’t Forget
Begin where you are. But don’t stay where you are.