Peatlands, prosperity and peace: ‘What now for the bogmen?’

Peatlands are contested landscapes in Ireland: important for biodiversity and carbon sequestration; long exploited through peat cutting that has destroyed archaeological sites on a significant scale. As industrial production ceases and peatland rehabilitation begins, ‘cut over’ remnants are all that survives; of the peat itself and the communities dependent on peat extraction as an economic activity: the problem of the ‘just transition’. What of the disappearing heritage of peat works and workers? How do we ‘make peace’ between the communities connected through different and sometimes opposing formulations of heritage to these landscapes?  

Part of the event fringe for LRG’s annual research showcase, in 2020 entitled “A future of our own making: What does landscape justice look and feel like in the face of rapid environmental change?”