Post-Congress Tour: Western peatlands
Tour co-ordinator: Dr. C.A. Farrell, Bord na Móna p.l.c.
Sheskin/Knockmoyle Atlantic blanket bog © Catherine Farrell
Text and photos: Catherine A. Farrell
Erris and Connemara – unique and inspirational landscapes
Mention the west of Ireland to anyone and an array of characteristic sights, sounds and smells are evoked by the imagination. The vast, boggy and often treeless landscape against the backdrop of the Atlantic; the song of the skylark and the call of the curlew against the eternal backing track of the western winds; the smell of turf smoke in winter and gorse in spring time: these are some of the things that come to my own mind. No surprise really that the west of Ireland has been inspiration to some of Ireland’s most prominent artists, writers and musicians in the past and continues to serve as muse for contemporary practitioners. For a taste of these artists check out the works of Heaney, Synge, Yeats, Henry and musicians such as The Chieftains: their work echoes the loneliness and un-paralleled beauty of these challenging lands.
The academic and administrative events of the International Peat Congress 2008 will be based in the midland counties of the Leinster province and while the counties of Offaly, Westmeath, Kildare, Laois and Longford are no less inspirational, the contrast with the western counties presents a well-rounded impression of the island of Ireland. Therefore, the organising committee has decided to focus the post-congress tour of the International Peat Congress 2008 in the counties of Mayo and Galway and we are hoping that some of you will find inspiration of your own amongst the bog roads of the western Connaught province.
West Connaught – heartland of peatland habitats and nature conservation
The tour itself is centred on a landscape dominated by peatland habitats of national and international conservation significance. In particular there are a number of extensive Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) designated under the EU Habitats Directive for the protection of Annex I listed priority habitats, notably ‘active’ or peat-forming blanket bog (mountain and lowland types). There are also extensive areas designated for Annex I listed habitats: wet and dry heath, transition mires and alkaline fens. Apart from peatland habitats, there are a number of coastal sites of priority and listed habitat status (salt marsh, sand-dunes and machair) as well as inland freshwater priority and listed habitats (turloughs and salmonid rivers). A number of state-owned Nature Reserves and National Parks, as well as conservation areas of national importance, Natural Heritage Areas (NHA), also occur in western Mayo and Galway.
All information pertaining to these conservation areas can be obtained by interested delegates through the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government website (http://www.npws.ie). The website is the portal for the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), the government body awarded the role of protection of habitats and species of conservation interest, and wildlife in general in Ireland. The post-congress tour will be run in close co-operation with the staff of the NPWS, both at local and national level.
Themes of the post-congress tour
The post-congress tour will aim to provide an overview of the range of peatland management issues that are encountered in contemporary Ireland. Many of the management challenges relate to decisions made in previous decades when the dynamics of peatland ecosystems were poorly understood and when local economic imperatives took precedence over the long-term viability of the landscape.
The challenges facing peatland managers include how to restore and conserve the functional aspects of peatland ecosystems following overgrazing, commercial planting with conifers, private turf-cutting and disturbances relating to extreme climatic events (peat slippages and erosion) and, in recent years, wind farm developments on blanket peatland sites.
As well as working with the scientific and local staff of the NPWS in co-ordinating the tour, we will be drawing on the knowledge of others involved in peatland management and policy development. These will range from members of the North West Regional Fisheries Board (catchment management), Coillte (the state forestry company), local conservation groups, academics and researchers (members of BOGLAND and other projects), archaeologists, musicians and artists, and local people who have lived and worked in the area, some of whom worked with Bord na Móna, and others involved in farming and fishing in the Erris and Connemara regions.
General Itinerary
The tour group will depart Tullamore following the IPS Executive Board meeting on the afternoon of 13 June 2008 and head west, spending the first night in the Downhill Hotel, Ballina, Co. Mayo. Ballina is a popular tourist destination, serving as a gateway to the west and north-west and renowned for the River Moy, a significant Atlantic salmon fishery of international acclaim. The Moy catchment, which is a designated SAC, spreads across the greater part of NE Mayo and into parts of neighbouring County Sligo.
Archaeology and pristine Atlantic blanket bog
The first full day of the tour will be spent exploring the dramatic bog landscape of NW Mayo. We will follow the NW Mayo coastal route through the monastic town of Killala onto the blanket bog-scape that covers the greater part the Mayo Erris peninsula. First stop will be the Céide Fields to visit some of the earliest Neolithic field systems that were discovered by archaeologists beneath the Atlantic blanket bog at Belderrig. The Céide Fields interpretative centre was built in 1993 to provide an interface for visitors to learn about the archaeology and other aspects of the wider area including botany, bogs and geology. It is located on high cliffs with a panoramic view overlooking the Atlantic just west of the town of Ballycastle.
In the afternoon the tour bus will continue along the NW Mayo coastal route and include stops at coastal peatlands and landslide sites. We will travel through the Glenamoy Blanket Bog complex SAC, as well as skirting a number of coastal sites (sand-dunes, beaches and cliff faces) of conservation significance. The second night will be spent in the Broadhaven Bay Hotel on the outskirts of Belmullet. This town, in Irish Béal an Mhuirthead, is the gateway to the Mullet Peninsula - an area of North Mayo rich in folklore, tradition, history and culture. Belmullet is now a thriving town with many new developments and amenities, while in former decades it was ravaged by emigration.
Bog restoration at Bellacorick © Catherine Farrell
Industrial cutaway bog: rehabilitation and restoration
The second day will comprise a visit to the former Bord na Móna energy peat production site at Bellacorick. The backdrop to the rehabilitation programme for the cutaway and examples of rehabilitated areas will be considered along with some of the future management issues for the site. The Bellacorick site (6,500 ha) is a complex of bog remnants, restored Atlantic blanket bog and rehabilitated industrial cutaway within the sensitive salmonid catchment of the Oweninny, Owenmore and Moy Rivers. One of the bog remnants located within the Bord na Móna site is an isolated Iron Flush complex (Bellacorick Flush) that is a designated SAC for the occurrence of a number of rare species including Marsh Saxifrage, Saxifraga hirculus. The site has been well documented and a number of boreal relic moss species have been recorded from the site and from flushes in the surrounding bog complexes. The former industrial site is surrounded by the Bellacorick Bog Complex SAC, and two state-owned lowland blanket bog nature reserves also occur in the area, namely Sheskin/Knockmoyle and Owenboy reserves.
Mayo hillside © Catherine Farrell
Ballycroy National Park
Monday will be largely based in the Ballycroy National Park, the most recently established of six National Park areas in Ireland, which comprises extensive upland and lowland peatland habitats. The National Park forms part of a 60,000 ha upland Special Protection Area (SPA) site: the qualifying interests for the SPA are breeding populations of Golden Plover, Dunlin and Merlin and wintering Greenland White-fronted Geese. It is also located within a Special Area of Conservation known as the Owenduff/Nephin Complex SAC. The Park and conservation areas are managed by the NPWS and there are currently works ongoing to develop a visitors’ centre in the village of Ballycroy.
From Ballycroy we will move south along the western coast of Mayo, through the emerging drumlin landscape around Mulranny and Westport, perched on the shores of Clew Bay. Clew Bay is a fascinating coastal site, dominated by several drumlin islands, some of which are inhabited by people and some inhabited only by sheep! The bay is overshadowed by the dramatic form of Croagh Patrick, a quartzite peak that serves as a traditional pilgrimage site. Tour delegates can avail of the cleansing spiritual aspects of climbing the holy mountain or some might prefer to purge themselves with a pint of Guinness at Matt Molloy’s pub in Westport, a well known hotspot for traditional music, singing and dancing.
Connemara dreaming
Following from Monday night in Westport, the tour will travel through South Mayo via Killary Harbour and cross the county border into Galway. Killary Harbour is the only example of a fjord in Ireland and is a wonderful feature embedded in the intricate shoreline of northern Connemara. We will travel along the northern boundary of Roundstone Bog and spend some time exploring the differences between the blanket bog sites of Erris and Connemara; differences which relate to the local underlying geology and hydrology.
Roundstone Bog lies within the Connemara Bog complex SAC and incorporates part of the Connemara National Park. Roundstone Bog is considered by many to be the jewel in the crown of Irish peatlands, with its 143 lakes and mosaic of heath and flushes. Its beauty and complexity has been comprehensively described by Tim Robinson “...dazzling when the sun is in the south, as if half a sky had been shredded and strewn over black earth, impossible to read as a geography of named and storied places, and scarcely to be believed in as a reality, an interweave of death and life, that can, with care, be walked across safely.”
On leaving Connemara on Tuesday 17 June we will pass through Galway and continue on to Tullamore and Dublin. Those wishing to spend further time in the west can avail of the airport facilities at Knock, Galway and Shannon, while there is also an excellent train and bus service connecting with Dublin. Tour price of €550 includes all transport, meals (breakfast, lunches, and dinners) and hotel accommodation (four nights).
We hope that there will be a strong interest in the tour from the conference delegates and an eventful and interesting experience is guaranteed. In Ireland, you never know who you will meet and often the unexpected and spontaneous parts of a trip are those things that you remember best. There will be a wealth of peatlands supplied by Nature, but we hope there will be an equal measure of enjoyment, inspiration and ‘ceol agus craic mar a deirimid in Éireann!’
Marsh saxifrage Saxifraga hirculuse © Catherine Farrell
Further details and information
Peatland Management, Conservation and Research
www.npws.ie
www.ballycroynationalpark.ie
www.connemaranationalpark.ie
www.npws.ie/ConservationSites
www.npws.ie/MapsData
www.ucd.ie/bogland
www.northwestfisheries.ie
www.coillte.ie
www.irishbogrestorationproject.ie
www.raisedbogrestoration.ie
Accommodation
www.downhillhotel.ie
www.broadhavenbay.com
www.westportwoodshotel.com
Towns and tourist details
www.mayococo.ie/en
www.mayo-ireland.ie
www.galway.ie/en
www.mayo-ireland.ie/Mayo/Towns/Ballina/Ballina.htm
www.mayo-ireland.ie/Mayo/Towns/Belmul/Belmul.htm
www.mayo-ireland.ie/Mayo/Towns/WestPort/Westport.htm
www.croagh-patrick.com
www.connemara-tourism.org
Arts and culture
www.connemara.net/words/tim-robinson
www.ballinglenartsfoundation.org
www.thelinenhall.com
www.westportartscenter.org
www.museumsofmayo.com/ceide.htm
www.tradcentre.com/mattmolloys/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Millington_Synge
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Fri
13/06/2008 |
Sat
14/06/2008 |
Sun
15/06/2008 |
Mon
16/06/2008 |
Tues
17/06/2008 |
Morning
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Scientific sessions, Conference close: Tullamore
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Palaeoecology; Archaeology: Céide Fields
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Peatland restoration and
conservation: Bellacorick
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Peatland management;
conservation;
Ballycroy National Park |
Pristine mires; Management Issues: Leenane and Connemara |
| Lunch |
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|
|
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| Afternoon |
Executive Board meetings |
Pristine mires; Management Issues: Glenamoy |
Industrial; After-Use; Rehabilitation; Conservation management: Bellacorick |
Forestry on peatlands; restoration
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Dublin via Galway and Tullamore |
| |
Tour departs Tullamore |
Peat stability: Pollathomas |
Pristine mires; Management Issues |
Dinner
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Downhill Hotel |
Broadhaven Bay |
Geesala
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Westport Woods |
| B & B |
Downhill Hotel |
Broadhaven Bay |
Broadhaven Bay |
Westport Woods |
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