Ireland
Key themes
To find out what is the best way to present information on peatland bog sites, through exploring best practice in interpretation when developing new walks and trails.
Pilot project lead body
Agency and other group partners
Overview of Irish peatlands
Although much reduced from their former size, Irish peatlands are among the most extensive in Europe. According to the Irish Peatland Conservation Council, the country holds roughly half the raised bogs and blanket bogs of conservation importance within Europe's Atlantic Biogeographic Region.
Blanket bogs are concentrated in Ireland's upland fringe, especially in the west. Much of the interior of the country is a low-level plain, smoothed and pushed-down by previous glacial action. Here, massive raised bogs developed from lowland lakes in the floodplains of major rivers following the last Ice Age, resulting eventually in the formation of deep peat.
Traditionally, hand-cutting of Irish peat for fuel was done using a lightweight spade called a 'slean'. Cutting and shredding of moss peat at Lough Boora, in the heart of Ireland's Midland raised bog area, began on a larger scale in the mid-1800s. Lough Boora - the location for work in the LEADER+ Connecting People With Our Peatland Heritage project - was also the place where the use of peat to fuel a power station was pioneered, early in the 20th century.
Industrial-scale extraction of peat in the Irish Midlands became a huge, economically significant activity with the establishment of Bord na Móna - The Peat Board - in 1946. Peat-fired electricity generating stations are fuelled by this peat, which is also moulded into briquettes for domestic use. Ireland is the top peat-fuelled energy producer in the world.
Areas where peat has been removed in horizontal sequence to produce milled material are known as 'cutaway' peatlands. Lough Boora is now the most significant of all Irish cutaways, since it has been used as a pilot area to research and develop techniques for after-use of such sites. This will eventually have relevance across much of Bord na Móna's 80,000ha holdings in central Ireland.
Irish peatland site involved in the LEADER+ project
Illustrations:
Map showing whole of Ireland and general position of Lough Boora
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