The Bogs of Ireland, Past & Future exhibition

Last Saturday a wonderful Citizen Science initiative, coordinated by my great friend and colleague Niall Ó Brolchain, took place at my workplace of the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics located in the Data Science Institute at the University of Galway.

Entitled Mapathon2024, it involved volunteers from many countries using open data to map the locations and policies of the peatlands across Europe. There were team entries from Estonia, Netherlands, France, urban and rural Ireland.

To support this event, I organised an exhibition on the Bogs of Galway based on photos from Insight’s BEO project, which represents an online digital local heritage archive comprising images, videos and audios telling the story of Ireland in times past. Supported by the Galway County Council's Heritage Office and the Galway Education Centre, this material has been collected over the years in collaboration with schools and community groups. Also on display were old sods of turf from our own family bog (sold many years ago to the Irish government for conservation purposes), an enamel (metal) mug used for the much needed cup of tea during breaktime on the bog, and the Slane (Irish = Sléan), the traditional implement used in Ireland for the cutting of the peat.

Hopefully these photos and items will bring back many happy childhood memories to people of my vintage of long hot summer days working in the bog with family cousins and neighbours!

The exhibition also highlighted the new role of peatlands in the 21st century in tackling the interconnected global climate and biodiversity crises and the importance in restorating them to serve as the largest of land-based natural carbon sinks.

Most of the photos in this montage are decades old and were originally black and white before I colourised them.

 

Rediscovering the Ancient Trails of Galway city

Local resident Ellie enthusiastically leads a group of intrepid adventurers along a hidden country lane that centuries ago was the main thoroughfare for people, animals and coaches travelling between Menlo village and Galway city.
Today this 'boreen' (Irish = 'botharín = small road) at Coolough (Cúil Lough = lake's end) ) is populated with a wonderful cornucopia of native trees, wildflowers, birds, insects and mammals. The sounds and sights of Nature that we experienced yesterday were a welcome soothing relief from the harsh noises of cars, trucks and much of urban life that was so evident only a few kilometres away.
Participants in yesterday's Seven Galway Castles' Heritage Cycle Tour felt they had stumbled into a lost world!
On the edges of Galway city lies a largely forgotten network of traditional rural lanes that local communities are now working together on to create a Greenways infrastructure as part of the 'National Park City for Galway' initiative. This 'lost world' will become 'our everyday world of the future'!

Mowing a Meadow-the traditional way

For the third year in succession volunteers are asked to participate in the mowing of a wildflower meadow using traditional hand-held implements. 

As part of the Galway Fringe Festival, starting at 10am on Sunday July 15th volunteers led by members of Cumann na bhFear(Men’s Shed Galway city) will use scythes to cut the long grass in a grassland of Terryland Forest Park near the Quincentenary Bridge. 

Since 2015, volunteers have planted thousands of the type of native Irish wildflowers that once light up the Irish countryside in a mosaic of colours in three former sterile lawns in Terryland Forest Park. Planting yellow cowslip, red poppy, purple clover, pink ragged robin and other plants has created what are known as 'meadows', which were in former times fields set aside by farmers for the growing of long grass which was cut during the late summer and autumn months to produce one or two crops of hay to serve as winter food for livestock. Because no chemical fertilizers were used, these meadows became important habitats for an array of colourful native wildflowers and would be alive with the sights and sounds of many varieties of bees, moths, butterflies and other pollinators. Our aim is to re-introduce meadows back unto the city and provide nectar-rich feeding havens for bees in particular which are in a serious decline worldwide due to industrialised monoculture farming, pesticides, habitat loss, pollution and climate change. Bees and other pollinators are essential to the survival of humanity as the plants that they help to reproduce are responsible for one-third of all foods and beverages that we consume. 
Scientific research in Britain is also showing that animals which graze on meadows of herbs, wild grasses and flowers eat far more minerals, amino acids and proteins are therefore a lot healthier. With their meat more nutritious, the benefits to consumers are obvious.

We hope that our actions will encourage other local community groups and schools nationwide to start re-establishing the meadows as a key part of Ireland’s countryside and natural heritage. 
Cumann na bhFear is also committed to preserving and re-educating the public in traditional Irish rural skills and crafts that still have an essential role to play in today’s farming because of their social, health, economic and environmental aspects.
So we are asking people to come along on Sunday next to take part in this ancient rural hay-cutting in action and to take part in planting nearly a thousand more wildflowers. Light refreshments will be provided to all volunteers.