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dolmen · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 25 Location: N.Ireland

Does anyone here cut their turf by hand? I work the bog, but my turf is machine cut, I do have reservations about even being there, as I wonder is it really a green option and just how sustainable is it?

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Róisín · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 39

My family does.

I think there are a lot of issues around it, green and otherwise. It *is* green and sustainable if it's worked by hand only. The machine is intensive farming basically and done on such a scale it's frightening how quickly they will disappear. They were trying to bring in a law back a while ago about stopping small local turfcutters working their own piece of bog, something that would have been in the family for generations. I didn't hear how it ended, but the protest put up by the likes of us made it fade away pretty quickly I think.

This is how traditional turfcutting is done (and it's not a dying craft either! I'm not old and I know many many people my age who still do it. Keeps your a**e warm in winter Laughing

).

It's a family affair. The father generally cuts the turf standing down in the boghole on a piece of board so that he doesn't sink in completely. He uses a sléan (pronounced sl-aahh-n, kind of rhymes with maaaan, like a sheep baaing!) which is shaped like a straight shovel. If he's starting a new boghole he removes the top layer of mossy grassy turf first, generally he wouldn't be doing this. The same boghole can be worked off for 70 years plus, so my father would work off those that my grandfather started. He makes three quick incisions with the sléan, side, side, bottom, then leaves the sléan in on the third stroke and levers out a brick shaped sod (pronounced sAd). He throws this up over his shoulder onto the high ground next to the boghole in which he is standing.

The next step is the mother's, who picks up these and makes them into footings (pronounced fut-ins) in order for them to dry. These are pyramid shaped piles of sods that let the air circulate through and dry them. Frogs jump out from under them. Footings are particularly the woman's job, mother or eldest sister. Then everyone goes away for a few weeks/ months til the footings are dry.

When they are dry, the eldest son/ father comes back to the bog and makes them into stacks. This is just a big, 6' high, 8' long, 4' wide, lozengeshaped stack of sods. If the weather is bad these are covered in plastic. More drying.

The next step is the day when you take it home. There is someone at the car or trailer waiting to receive the wheelbarrows that come up (eldest brother). Youngest daughter usually has the wheelbarrow. Father loads it up. Then it's transferred into a lean-to at home and BURNED!

I hope this was interesting. I didn't mean it to be so long. This is how it is done where I am from anyhow, and friends who are from different parts to me say it is the same where they are from too. Very Happy

wayland · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 1171 Location: Campile. Wexford

Thanks for that Roisin. You conjure up a nice image with your family working to get your fuel. This is Self-Sufficiency and not a commercial enterprise. Well done for seeing off those who would say that you do wrong. What I think is of more importance is that this is very much a family thing. Something I see and feel alot here in Ireland. Such things should be encouraged so they should. I burn turf by the way obviously cut by some big machine of course. Is it eco unfriendly to burn this?
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blowin · Posted: Sat Dec 16, 2006 7:32 pm Post subject:

Brilliant article , Roisin . More of the same any time you like . Please !

gai · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 83 Location: Co Donegal

Lovely article Roisin. It brings back memories of the way my family cut turf when we were small. OH and I bought our own piece of bog this year and cut turf to get ready for the solid fuel stanley that's going into the new house. It was cut by machine as neither OH nor I would be fit enough to do it by hand but we did all the rest ourselves - turning it, footing it, bagging it, getting it out of the bog, bringing it home and stacking it. Fairly back breaking as it was the first year we've done it but there's a feeling of satisfaction in it and I'm looking forward to that first fire lit. One of the nicest things in Ireland is the smell of turf fires as you travel along the road.

Róisín · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 39

Oh ye are making me blush Laughing

Kira · Joined: 02 Jan 2007 Posts: 27 Location: Belfast

My family "own" a piece of a bog as well. I have many happy memories of running around the bog with my cousins as a kid, while my dad and uncles cut turf and my aunts made tea and sandwiches.

blowin · Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 2:54 am Post subject:

I would never have imagined that there could be so many intricacies around something which is used as an everyday fuel .
There is all the tradition , so nicely described above , and the very specialised spade ( what is its proper name ? ) .
Then there is everything else !!! Perhaps we could get a thread going for the benefit of newcomers and people like me who are still trying to get the hang of it after a few years .
Finding a plot : apparently every old house , around here anyway , would have "turbary" ( turf cutting ) rights somewhere . These stay with the property ie cannot be transferred . They will be detailed on the Title Deeds . Ours are given as plot numbers on a bog some miles away . The area is described in some detail -- on the mountain called ... in the parish of ... so finding it should not have been too difficult . But it took 2 years of asking around then a stroke of pure luck before I could actually point to a plot and say "that is the one" . It took about 2 minutes for someone to tell me when I got it wrong . I almost suspected a conspiracy at one stage !
Getting it out of the ground : By hand -- I imagine is very hard work ! Hopper turf is said to be the best but leaves those bl@@dy great holes like scars on the landscape . On the other hand the furrowing method ( if that is what it is called ) slices up the structure of the bog and can make it very unstable .
As for the turf itself , that seems to vary in quality from one end of the bog to the other . I am told the blacker the better , and best of all is black turf above sand .
Worst of all is wet turf . Which reminds me that mine is still out on the bog so I better get some sleep if I am to get it in tomorrow ! I'll see if anyone is interested in this topic before rabiting on any further Laughing

keithrawlins · Joined: 18 Feb 2007 Posts: 152 Location: banbridge

we have an old bog on the land that i was thinking of starting. can any bog be used for turf as some are quit crombley. as you can tell i have no idea how or were to start so any adivce would be most wellcome Laughing

quarryman · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 417 Location: Sligo

Around here, Blowin, it's called sausage turf because of it appearance as it comes out the back of the machine. The down side is that it hollows out the bog and it will eventually collpase in on it's self.

We have a goodsized plot and as luck would have it the "bawn" turf is right beside the track and the good black turf is about 200mt accross the unstable ground. So the chances are that it will most likely stay there in the ground !!!!