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Celebrating Boglands Book tells a tale of Ireland - then and now

For release 24 October 2002

Celebrating Boglands, a book published by the Irish Peatland Conservation
Council to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the Save the Bogs Campaign
tells a tale of Ireland - then and now. Ireland of the past, of which Seamas
Caulfield writes " when anything got broken you fixed it or did without".
In which a fourteen mile journey, which crossed a straggly causeway through
a bog in a time of unreliable cars, few mechanics and fewer phones, became a
white-knuckled drive of fearful anticipation for the young Polly Devlin.

And the Ireland of now, in which Tim Robinson says, "as our knowledge of
Roundstone piles up in thesis after thesis, the thing in itself disappears.
Overgrazing, turf cutting, forestry, draining, fencingEnvironmental Impact
Statements ­ intensive and extensive ordering of the wild and wet by
bureaucracy." Of which Michael Viney writes " the blanket bogs of the west
seem all too aptly named: a blanket, rent and threadbare, ripped and worn
into holes "

Reading the book one is struck by the immensity of the journey, we as a
nation have taken in just 20 years. We have come from a time and culture in
which we looked on bogs from afar - wastelands to be dug, drained, burned,
and planted, to a time and culture in which we have gotten off the fence and
waded in for a close look. And discovered places that although, to
paraphrase one contributor, are empty of agricultural animals or people, are
nonetheless filled with life; the stealthy sundew silently stealing insects,
the magnanimous Sphagnum moss absorbing the deluges of rain, the arguing
frogs.

And so the story of bogs in Ireland has mirrored many other changes over the
last century. Life has changed utterly, and few would want to return to
those days of hardship. This book is also about the heartland that could
have been lost along with the hardship. But the words of the Dutch man -
Matthijs Schouten - "Mongan bog will survive", were to be harbingers of 20
years of halting the wanton and indiscriminate destruction of virtually our
only pieces of wilderness. The callow fens and bog wetlands, are David
Bellamy's university and they perform vital functions for the natural
world. "Callows the kidneys of the landscape keeping the chemistry of the
waters sweet and pure. Bogs the lungs of the earth sequestering carbon into
long term store and producing oxygen to help keep the atmosphere in living
balance".

Celebrating Boglands is a book of many moods, some sombre, some serene,
evocative of the landscape, some steeped in recollections of a life with
different challenges, pleasures and fears, and some anecdotal. It is a book
to be read in little morsels, so as to savour its many moods. It is also a
visual journey through sparkling bog pools, colourful carpets of bog moss
and 10,000 years of history, seen through the eyes of artists, photographers
and sculptors (Editors Note 1).

Celebrating Boglands
* An unique blend art, prose, science, poetry & music inspired by the
boglands
* International group of 36 contributors.
* Copies of the book are available from IPCC, 119 Capel Street, Dublin 1
for Euro 37 including postage and packing.

ENDS

Editor's Note 1
Celebrating Boglands Contributors
Myrtle Allen, David Bellamy, Pauline Bewick, Luka Bloom, Vera Bowe, Gillian
M. Boyle, Michael Casey, Marianne ten Cate, Seamas Caulfield, Éamon de
Buitléar, Patrick Devaney, Polly Devlin, Caitríona Douglas, Rosaleen Dwyer,
Ted Farrell, Peter Foss, Remco de Fouw, Mary Golden, Seamus Heaney, Martin
Kelly, Helen M. Lamb, Neil Lockhart, Fiona MacGowan, Ruth McGrath, Eliza
Olson, Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Catherine O'Connell, Julian Reynolds, Tim
Robinson, Alison Rosse, Shinichiro Saito, Trevor Sargent, Matthijs Schouten,
Imogen Stuart, Michael Viney, H.John Wilson

____________________________________
Irish Peatland Conservation Council
119 Capel Street
Dublin 1
Ireland

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e-mail: bogs@ipcc.ie
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