In Praise of Irish Bogs

My recent acquisition of two lovely pieces of bog oak sculpture from my friend local artist and sculptor Richard J Gough has rekindled my interest in Irish bogs and has prompted me to write a post on the subject.

The raw material that sculptors like Richard work with to produce those beautiful artifacts is reclaimed from ancient bogs in which they have slept for thousands of years. Carbon dating has shown that they are between 3,000 and 5,000 years old. Many years ago this wood was used in domestic utensils, jewellery, torches, and also for a source of fuel supply.

Ireland is a country long associated with bogs. All too often derogatory titles have been attached to the Irish people due to that association. Names such as “bog men”, “bog trotters” and other equally less flattering terms were used to describe the Irish. Phrases such as “bog standard” would be used to describe workmanship of an inferior nature.

Why Ireland should be singled out and placed in this category, eludes me because bogs are a very common feature throughout Europe. Indeed, parts of America are widely covered with bogland and fens. My favourite US state of Minnesota, with more than 6 million acres, has more bogs than any other state except Alaska.

Throughout time, the bogs have made a vital contribution to the Irish people by the production of fossil heating fuel. In its natural state the peat or turf is approximately 90% water and 10% solid. Its location near the surface meant that it could be harvested and dried and was a readily available economical fuel. A couple of weeks turf cutting followed by drying throughout the summer months would provide enough fuel to last a family until the following year when the cycle would be repeated.

Turf cutting in an Irish bog
Doing it the traditional way

Over the past three decades peat (or turf) production in Ireland has been transformed from a rudimentary hand-won operation to a highly mechanized and commercially profitable national industry. Through a mixture of government policy-making and technological advancement 130,000 acres of bogland have been converted into a major fuel production complex. Peat has captured a large share of the domestic solid fuel market, both rural and urban, and accounts for one-quarter of the nation's electricity

peat harvesting

Doing it the modern way

Another contribution made by the bogs to the Irish culture has been bog wood that I mentioned at the top. After the last Ice Age melted away, Ireland was covered in forests of Oak, Yew and Pine. As the climate became wetter, the ground became boggier and eventually could no longer support the growth or reproduction of these trees. As the bog expanded it drowned and buried the trees and the lack of oxygen in the wet peat preserved the wood from decay. The Bog Oak is now black because of the acids and the chemicals of the bog, and the Bog Pine is a richer golden colour.

The bogs of Ireland are part of our heritage. They can be seen as the keepers of our history. Because they have been formed over time, they can be seen as a time capsule that will transport you back through the ages. As you dig through the soft pliable material of the peat you will journey back through the ages. Close enough to the surface you will come to a time when Brian Boru informed some Scandinavian visitors and their traitorous Irish allies at Clontarf that they had overstayed their welcome and he would like them to leave. A little further and you will come to a time when there was an unusual court case between two holy men, Finian and Colmcille, about the copyright to a manuscript. Another step downward brings you to the execution of a revolutionary in the Near East because he preached universal love. Then there is the introduction of the new technology of bronze working into Ireland. Close to the ground floor, you will encounter the time of the completion of Egypt’s finest pyramid. Then you arrive at the ground floor and in time, to 3000 BC. There it is all about the steady stream of immigrants into Ireland who no longer depend on fishing and hunting for their food. The newcomers have a magical control over the massive animals which they bring with them, and they eat the seeds of strange new grasses which they plant in the ground. They have new tools and new materials, they bake clay into pottery, they make cloth from fibres, and they man-handle enormous rocks into position to construct megalithic tombs for their dead.

Irish sculptors like my friend Dick Gough take part of that history and with their skill and talent give it new life in the form of the beautiful pieces they create from the ancient wood. Some of their art is sculpted into specific forms. Other pieces maintain the natural shape already in the wood and it is up to the eye of the beholder to decide what they represent. Several people, both in Ireland and, through the medium of the internet, America have seen mine. The glory of it is that each person that has seen them has seen something different. All are agreed on one thing though – their beauty and craftmanship

My two pieces of Bog Oak sculptures by Richard J Gough

Dick's Bio

Click to enlarge

In the early 1980's a local schoolmaster started exploring the local bog, near the town of Ballycastle in County Mayo. He discovered that beneath the bogs lay the stone walls of fields that were farmed by Irish people and the remains of some of their houses. They represent the oldest enclosed farmland discovered in the Western world (older than the Egyptian Pyramids) at about 5,000 years. He called them the Céide Fields,people travel from all over the world to visit the oldest known field system in the world that is preserved beneath a wild blanket of bogland on the North Mayo.

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