{"id":4003,"date":"2026-06-03T12:16:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tocharwetlands.ie\/?p=4003"},"modified":"2026-06-03T12:16:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:16:40","slug":"were-standing-on-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tocharwetlands.ie\/ga\/uncategorised\/were-standing-on-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019re standing on the past\u201d\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Eugene Dunbar on how the bogs hold our history<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helen Shaw, T\u00f3char Stories<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a beautiful day to walk the Cloncrow Bog loop in Tyrrellspass, Co Westmeath, with community leader Eugene Dunbar. When you walk anywhere around Tyrrellspass with Eugene you always meet at least one or two people who stop to tell you Eugene taught them – and how much they remember and respect him. Sometimes their children, even their grandchildren, are with them. He\u2019s a retired history and geography secondary teacher and his love of education and connecting people with the stories of the place around them is clear in his volunteer work with ETHOS, (Everything Tyrrellspass Has on Show), the community group that has become a custodian of Cloncrow Bog.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Eugene
Photo: Eugene Dunbar pointing out the bog restoration work to T\u00f3char Stories Helen Shaw on\u00a0Cloncrow\u00a0Bog.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

WATCH:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Eugene Dunbar on the story of Cloncrow Bog<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The loop from\u00a0Tyrrellspass\u00a0Castle through the bog and back to the village green is a walk Eugene does every day. He lives nearby with his wife Josephine who is a keen amateur visual artist.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201c<\/strong>I just feel that\u00a0great sense\u00a0of peace really when I come here because you\u00a0have to\u00a0cherish\u00a0what’s\u00a0around you. It is just incredible to come down here early in the morning. You think\u00a0there’s\u00a0no life out in the\u00a0bog,\u00a0it looks like a lifeless zone, but in fact it is full of minuscule life, of tiny insect life. The\u00a0colour\u00a0pattern is gorgeous, actually. It is beautiful, you know. To the artist, it must be inspirational\u201d,\u00a0he says – and indeed some of Josephine Dunbar\u2019s work captures the changing landscape of the bogland. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

They are 50 years married, he tells me with a smile, with four children and 11 grandchildren, and while he is originally from Limerick he is so long rooted in\u00a0Tyrrellspass\u00a0and Westmeath he is a \u2018local\u2019 although turf cutting was alien to him when he arrived in the early seventies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cI came from Limerick City, you know, where there was no such thing as bogs. And we always burned coal, and I thought there was nothing else, only coal in the\u00a0world.So\u00a0when I came to teach, I was just amazed. And during the summer months, there were tractors and trailers, up and down the roads. And then the whole village of\u00a0Tyrrellspass\u00a0was based on the bog.\u00a0There’s\u00a0a Bord\u00a0na\u00a0M\u00f3na housing estate there, and my job basically\u00a0depended\u00a0on the bog and the extraction of peat from the bog\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But Eugene\u2019s curiosity and love of nature brought him to the Irish Peatlands Conservation Council (IPCC) and a deeper understanding of the flora and fauna of the boglands – and the need to protect those habitats. Then, he says, in the 70s and 80s there was little understanding of the role the bogs and wetlands could play in storing carbon and mitigating the climate crisis – that came later.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2020 Cloncrow Bog has undergone significant nature restoration work enabled by the CARE-PEAT Project <\/a>, an EU North-West Europe peatlands restoration scheme, and supported by ETHOS who engaged with private landowners to bring them on board. Cloncrow Bog has always been privately owned, and while families historically cut turf there, it escaped the  industrial extraction of peat by Bord na M\u00f3na – seen on other depleted boglands in the region. Today Cloncrow Bog covers 234 hectares to the West with Tore Bog to the South. It is a Natural Heritage Area (NHA) and ETHOS worked to develop the 3.5km loop, connecting the Castle, bog and village and has even created a QR code audio walk you can access along the route, with local people telling the village and bog story.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Eugene
Photo: Eugene showing Artist Annie Holland how the QR codes work at the village green, facing St Anne\u2019s NS where Eugene, Annie and\u00a0T\u00f3char\u00a0Stories ran a\u00a0bog\u00a0and creative art project with the children in 2025\u00a0<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In June last year\u00a0T\u00f3char\u00a0Stories, with Eugene and artist Annie Holland, partnered with St Anne\u2019s NS in the village and worked with the children in 4th Class to create a new visual entrance for the boardwalk. Eugene brought the children into the wonders of sphagnum moss, the bog-builder, and introduced them to the tiny bog carnivorous plants like sundews while Annie mentored them on shaping their own artwork depictions of the wildlife, the plants, birds and insects, that find their home on the bog. Today, a year later, the beautiful panels with the children\u2019s artwork, their\u00a0names and the species they picked to paint, are a welcoming delight to see and a conversational point for visitors.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Photos: Hugo (Devil\u2019s Matchstick) <\/em><\/em>, Katherine(blue tit) Johaan (bog beetle), and Holly (Ling Heather) some of the children with their artwork on the entrance panels to the boardwalk\u00a0( photo credit\u00a0Annie Holland)<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\u00a0Eugene\u00a0the project with St Anne\u2019s NS, mixing bog ecology and creativity, and creating the entrance panels has been a gamechanger.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u00a0\u201cPeople are amazed by it, you know, they genuinely are. And the parents, especially of the kids involved,\u00a0it\u00a0has\u00a0 spurred\u00a0something with them as well. Like\u00a0they’re\u00a0coming down to the bog now more often with the kids. So, it has transformed the bog, in a sense,\u00a0insofar as\u00a0it’s\u00a0no longer just a bog,\u00a0it’s\u00a0their<\/em>\u00a0bog. And it gives the children ownership of it. And I think\u00a0that’s\u00a0fantastic because\u00a0that’s\u00a0what\u00a0has to\u00a0be handed on. Do you know that\u00a0they’re\u00a0going to be the custodians, if you like, of the bog\u201d,\u00a0he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"Group
Photo: The children, artist Annie Holland, Eugene Dunbar, Helen\u00a0Shaw\u00a0and teacher Laura Lynch at finish of bog art project, June 2025<\/em>\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Walking the bog loop with\u00a0Eugene\u00a0it is clear how much of his life,\u00a0post retirement\u00a0has been given to this voluntary work. His photographs feature in the information\u00a0panels\u00a0and he has been to the forefront of ensuring research data continues to be gathered at the high bog – although the CARE-PEAT scheme finished in 2023. His combined love of history and geography, as well as the curiosity of the St Anne\u2019s children, meant we took the children (now finishing 5th Class) to the National Museum last November to see the bog bodies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Group
Photo: St Anne\u2019s NS children, now 5th Class, with Eugene and teacher Laura Lynch at the National Museum (credit Helen Shaw)<\/em>\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

WATCH<\/strong>:\u00a0A visit to the National Museum see the Bog Bodies\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what does this place -the bog – mean to Eugene?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cIt means\u00a0an awful\u00a0lot to me. I spent all my life, my working life, as a history and geography teacher\u2026and\u00a0I think everything\u00a0is\u00a0kind of condensed\u00a0in the bog. You’re looking at a landscape that is relatively untouched when\u00a0it’s\u00a0in its pristine condition and here is, as near as possible as you can get to being pristine,\u2019 he says pointing out to the high bog with its history reaching back 10,000 years.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"Birdseye
Photo:\u00a0T\u00f3char\u00a0Stories drone footage of\u00a0Cloncrow\u00a0Bog, March 2026<\/em>\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

WATCH<\/strong>:  A bird\u2019s eye view of Cloncrow Bog<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cLike, I often think we’re standing on a history book when we stand here, you know. If you go down a metre, you’re back 1,000 years, 2,000 years, 3,000 years, 4,000, you can go back 10,000 years. So our ancestors have left a mark in this place, and it’s not just a surface mark, it’s a mark that actually runs deep. And you can actually see when the first farmers came in, the first Mesolithic people, the first Neolithic people, the Bronze Age people, the Iron Age people, right up to the present time, they’ve all left an imprint here, and it’s been preserved. But here we are standing quite literally on the past. The past is actually beneath us here, and it is embedded here and it’s preserved here in the archaeology but also in the pollen and in climate change. You have the traces here of the first people that came to the Midlands of Ireland. And it’s beneath us\u201d. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n