Herb Riddle's photos with the keyword: Peat_Bogs

As we continue our home stretch of this ‘Children of Lir Loop walk’ we witness more evidence of this traditional custom in this part of Ireland. Peat harvesting has been carried out here for millennium, originally as fuel for local home heating and cooking but more recently as big business for use in horticulture. We see here a tractor helping in digging rows of shallow trenches, where the brick-sods are cut out (slices of peat) and laid in rows on the surface nearby, in order to dry. You can see on here the outline of many years of peat harvesting covering the whole area. As we walked past dwelling, we could see many piles of these peat sods under canvas or shelters ready to be burned indoors. Even before seeing all that, you could smell the very distinctive aroma of burned peat. The Pip (last photo) shows a similar bog field just some 20 miles away. Nowadays, with the sure knowledge of climate change it is recognised that these wetland peat bogs, often many thousands of years old are great reservoirs of carbon and the harvesting of peat emits greenhouse gases by releasing that carbon. In that respect there are plans afoot to halt all commercial cutting. See link: www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/27/ireland-closes-peat-bogs-climate-change See last photo for a little more info.

County Mayo Although commercial peat harvesting in Ireland is (or is almost) banned, we see here the obvious signs of harvesting on a big scale. In the background are big piles of white plastic bags holding the peat bricks (sods), ready for transportation. ~ Peat bogs grow slowly, accumulating around 0.5 to 1 mm of peat each year, and the water prevents the plants from decomposing. As a result, many areas of UK (and Irish) peat bog have been accumulating gradually for as much as 10,000 years, and can be up to 10m deep. Nb The Pennine moorland tops, we see from our house (in the UK) is largely composed of peat too. See next photo