“Old Croghan Man” is a preserved Iron Age body on display at the National Museum of Archeology in Dublin, Ireland. Frances Mack
Streamers of police tape decorated the deserted Offaly bog in central Ireland. Heavy rain poured down on Cathy Moore and Conor McDermott as they trudged through the thick mud. Their boots squelched with every step through the murky puddles.
When the two archeologists arrived at the site, they knelt side-by-side in the slime and began carefully combing through the layers of peat. Then, Moore froze. She lifted a small, brown object from the dirt and inspected it in her palm: almond-shaped, slightly curved, and lined with thin, dirt-crusted grooves.
“I think we both realized at the same second it was a fingernail,” McDermott recalled earlier this spring.
The fingernail belonged to a mutilated, yet well-preserved, Iron Age bog body called “Old Croghan Man.” The body was discovered in June 2003, when a worker cutting a drainage channel through the bog spotted an arm dangling from his field slitter. Moore and McDermott were dispatched to the site shortly after to see if anything else could be gleaned from the muck.
Peat bogs are dense, freshwater wetlands that develop over thousands of years. When glaciers retreated during the last ice age, they left behind lake basins that gradually filled with mosses and other plant debris. As these layers of plants accumulated and became saturated with water, they created an acidic and anaerobic environment that inhibits the growth of fungi and bacteria, preventing normal decomposition of plant matter and preserving organic materials—even those as small as a fingernail. Bogs are also vital carbon sinks: Although peatlands cover just 3 percent of the Earth's land surface, they sequester nearly a third of the world’s soil carbon.
Clara Bog's waterlogged, acidic grounds promote the growth of sphagnum moss, as well as other plants and grasses. Frances Mack
Peatlands once covered nearly one-fifth of the island of Ireland, creating a natural time capsule for the history of Irish civilizations and ecosystems. Within them, preserved layer by layer, are artifacts spanning from the stone, bronze, and iron ages to recent times: gold coins and necklaces, earthenware pitchers, iron daggers and bronze axe heads, leather shoes and bottles, and, of course, human remains. Through these objects, archeologists thread together the fabric of human civilization’s development.
In addition to these human artifacts, bogs have also preserved a rich environmental history. “You have ancient pollen, grain, plant remains—essentially a whole history of climate change for millennia is stored in our bogs,” Moore said. These microscopic bits of plants and organisms can be carbon dated to help scientists understand how biodiversity and landscapes changed over time with fluctuations in temperature and other environmental factors.
But this rich and varied history is at risk. Bogs are extremely sensitive to changing environmental conditions. A long history of industrial extraction, now exacerbated by climate change, has destabilized the delicate chemistry of these ecosystems, threatening the historical record of human activity contained within them, as well as one of the best defenses bulwarks against rapid climate change. Archaeologists, environmentalists, and energy developers are clashing over the best way to steward these ecosystems and their contents for the future.
“Christ, what have we done here?”
On a chilly April afternoon, the long dry grasses covering Clara Bog swayed in the gentle breeze and tufts of heather rustled, creating ripples in the small puddles of still water. Birds chirped and distant cars whizzed along the thin highway cutting through the vast, brown bog.
Clara Bog stretches 10 square miles across the Irish Midlands and is the best remaining example of a raised bog in the country. Raised bogs are dome-shaped wetlands with deep deposits of peat that often rise several yards above the surrounding land. Hundreds of years ago, these bogs covered over 1,000 square miles of Ireland; now only about seven percent, or roughly 80 square miles, remain intact.
Leonard Egan grew up working on his family’s peat harvesting farm. Using a specialized spade, he would slice rectangular pieces of sod—the carbon-rich, top layer of peat made up of grasses, soil, and roots. Then, he would load the slabs of sod onto a wheelbarrow, roll them up to the raised part of the bog, spread them out, and leave them to dry in the sun. Once dry, the solid pieces were sold and burned on stoves to heat homes.
“That was people’s source of fuel for the winter,” Egan said.
The large-scale exploitation of peat bogs, which were historically viewed as wastelands, began in the 17th century. Bogs were artificially drained to make the land more suitable for agricultural development and peat harvesting. When peat, or turf, is cut and dried, it can be burned as a cheap energy source, since it’s rich in combustible carbon. When the Great Irish Famine struck in 1845, wood was scarce and expensive. Poor Irish farmers relied heavily on peat to feed the fires that warmed their homes and boiled their potatoes. By the late 18th century, peat had become the primary source of fuel in Ireland.
In 1934, the Irish government formed the Turf Development Board to accelerate peat harvesting and bog draining. A few years later, the board purchased several large bogs and began draining them using German excavation machines called “baggers.” The introduction of machinery, combined with schemes to distribute peat during coal shortages in World War II, fast-tracked bog development. By the end of the war, half of the country’s raised bogs had been destroyed.
The Wicklow Mountains National Park is Ireland's largest national park, and it's covered in upland blanket bogs and shrubland habitats. Over a square mile of degraded and de-vegetated peat covers the mountain range. Frances Mack
Soon after, the Turf Development Board changed its name to Bord na Móna, or The Peat Board. The government-controlled company quickly dominated the fuel industry, and peat harvesting became intertwined with Irish tradition and economic growth. For decades, Bord na Móna bought up bogs, mechanized and commercialized the fuel collection process, and hired thousands of workers in the rural Midlands.
Ben Gearey, a lecturer in the department of archeology at the University College Cork, said the past eighty years of peat harvesting have had devastating effects on bog environments. “These are post-industrial landscapes,” Gearey said. “You stand on the edge of them, you just go, ‘Christ, what have we done here?’” Gearey recalled the signs of extraction he’s seen in once thriving bogs: big holes in the ground, piles of gravel, a sea of endless brown.
The most severe consequence of extraction is on the carbon cycle.
Peatlands are the largest terrestrial carbon sink in the world. Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then it gets trapped in dense peat for thousands of years. Climate change-induced droughts, combined with decades of industrial peat extraction, drainage, and afforestation are causing wetlands to dry up and hemorrhage carbon into the atmosphere. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, exploited bogs account for five percent of total global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Flo Renou-Wilson, a bog researcher at the University College Dublin, said bogs are ticking time bombs because they’re full of carbon. “If [bogs are] drying out, that carbon is going to add to the climate change,” Renou-Wilson said, “so we have a feedback loop.”
It’s not just that dried up bogs don’t make for very good carbon sinks. According to experts, they essentially become “carbon bombs.” When bogs dry up, the half-decayed plant matter within them is exposed to oxygen and microbes, allowing them to fully decompose and release large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.
As depleted bogs emit greenhouse gases, they contribute to climate change, which dries them out even more. According to Met Éireann, Ireland’s national meteorological service, in a high emission (business as usual) scenario, by 2100, summer temperatures will rise by more than two degrees Celsius and summer rainfall will decrease by up to seven percent. Peatbogs will continue to dry and decay with more frequent heat waves and droughts caused by climate change.
But draining bogs has other implications, too. It means the loss of habitat and biodiversity, less freshwater storage and filtration, and fewer naturally preserved records of how ancient flora and fauna responded to past shifts in climate. It also means that artifacts are ripped apart by field equipment. Bog bodies are often unearthed by machines and exposed to the elements—specifically oxygen—which leads to their rapid decomposition.
“About 4,000 archaeological sites of different periods and different stints were identified in Bord na Móna’s peatlands,” Gearey said. “That's just the areas of extraction, and almost all those sites are gone.”
The transition from “Brown to Green”
Years after his summers spent laying out sod, Egan now works as an environmental, health, and safety consultant. He takes daily strolls along the timber boardwalk outlining the perimeter of Clara Bog, which was designated a national nature reserve in 1987. During the spring and summer months, he spends his nearly 4-mile walk admiring the dense patches of plants and searching for newts. Increasingly, people like Egan are recognizing the value of Ireland's remaining peat bogs and advocating for their conservation.
In the last decade, as climate change and the decay of bogs has accelerated, Bord na Móna has rebranded and shifted to promoting renewable energy sources. In 2018, the company launched its “Brown to Green” strategy. According to an official statement, their strategy has guided the company’s transformation into the “leading climate solutions and renewable energy provider in Ireland.” In 2023, the company’s peat operations ceased completely.
“This is not only returning these peatlands to areas of great natural beauty and thriving biodiversity, but it is also ensuring the sequestration of approximately 75 million tonnes of carbon,” the company said.
To supplement the country’s supply of energy, Bord na Móna has promised to develop enough wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources to power one-third of Irish homes. But even these proposals are not without controversy.
In 2021, Bord na Móna proposed the construction of an industrial wind farm in Lemonaghan, a small town in central Ireland. The wind farm, which is still in the drafting stage, will consist of 15 turbines. The company has proposed these turbines be built in the center of the bog. Lemonaghan residents are pushing back.
Lemonaghan is regarded as one of the richest archeological sites in the country. It was once a small island surrounded by wetlands in all directions. A monastery and church dedicated to Saint Manchan were built on the dry land in the center of the island in the seventh century. Archeologists have found a network of complicated wooden tracks through the bog connecting to the monastery, suggesting its historical significance and popularity as a destination for travelers thousands of years ago. Archeologists discovered an oak-plank trackway from 5000 BC, a neolithic axe head, a medieval shoe, silver coins, and even a bog body at Lemonaghan
Visitors to Saint Machan’s monastery, which is now a decrepit cemetery guarded by a lone donkey, can’t miss the signs plastered to the wall of the old schoolhouse across the street. They read, in bold text, “Protect Lemonaghan Bog, No Wind Turbines.”
A lone donkey stands in a field in front of the remains of St. Manchan's monastery in Lemonaghan. The monastery was an early Christian settlement in central Ireland in the 7th century. Frances Mack
The people of Lemonaghan want control over the land Bord na Móna has owned since 1949. The Lemonnaghan Bog Heritage and Conservation Group is dedicated to protecting the bog from the proposed industrial wind farm. The self-proclaimed “bog guardians” host events to educate the community about archeology and the heritage of the land. They voice their protest and advertise events to over 1,000 followers on Facebook.
For the last few years, Moore has worked on the Irish Peatland Archeology Across Time project, which aimed to communicate the significance of Ireland’s peat bog archeology. Moore said she’s noticed communities, specifically Lemonaghan, are becoming more conscious and protective of their heritage. “I think there's a feeling that these areas gave a lot to industrialization of the bogs,” Moore said. “Now we want input, we want a stake in what happens next, and we want the next change to be a very positive one in terms of the climate and in terms of the heritage, natural and archeological, of the area.”
Leonard Egan stands on the boardwalk circling Clara Bog after his daily walk around the park. Frances Mack
Clara Bog Nature Reserve is protected under national and international designations. The bog, which covers nearly two miles, is home to a variety of protected wildlife species and is a popular tourist and local recreation site. Frances Mack
Signs put up by community advocates oppose the proposed wind farm on Lemonaghan bog lands on the wall of St. Manchan's National School building. Frances Mack
A Band-Aid on a bullet hole
In addition to its shift toward more sustainable energy sources, Bord na Móna promised to restore and preserve the land it once exploited. The company has been blocking drains, so bogs retain moisture, and they have already rehabilitated over 28 square miles of land, according to their website. Rewetting bogs raises the water tables and helps slowly rebuild the ecosystems.
However, some scientists and archeologists feel Bord na Móna’s efforts are like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet hole. McDermott said he recognized rewetting may help re-establish biodiversity, but he questions whether it will help archaeology. Adding water on top of bogs that have already been dehydrated will not restore the careful chemistry that preserves human tissue. It will not help preserve bog bodies or other artifacts but bury them deeper beneath layers of waterlogged soil. And completely restoring these ecosystems will lead to tree and plant growth that will cause roots to poke through layers of peat, further disturbing artifacts.
“How do you preserve it in a way that still allows for conservation and regeneration of peatlands and things like that?” McDermott said.
According to Gearey, Bord na Móna’s problem lies in the distinction between restoration and rehabilitation. “Most of the Bord na Móna bogs, they’re being rehabilitated and not being restored,” Gearey said. “Most of these bogs are so knackered—to use a technical term—they can’t be restored to peat-accumulating systems.”
Clonycavan Man is a bog body on display at the National Museum of Archeology. According to radiocarbon dating, Clonycavan Man lived between 392 and 201 B.C. Frances Mack
Bord na Móna is choosing to rehabilitate these landscapes by rewetting them because the peatbog ecosystem is so complex and takes so long to form. According to Gearey, rewetting is the best they can do to end up with a “mosaic” of what’s left of wetland habitats.
Some experts believe bogs should be left alone to regenerate naturally over time, with no future excavation or exploitation. In this case, saving bogs becomes a matter of time. Truly restoring, not just rehabilitating, bogs would take several millennia. But we don’t have several millennia to reverse the effects of climate change—the effects that are escalated by carbon being released by dying bogs.
Renou-Wilson suggested collaborative action is key. Ireland needs an intentional balance between rehabilitation and restoration and a shift toward sustainable energy that considers cultural heritage. Rehabilitating the bog ecosystems while also preserving the artifacts within them will require communication among energy companies, archeologists, and environmental scientists. Mitigating climate change while also preserving ancient objects is important so people can experience and learn about human history.
A piece of history
Rama Moorthy stood in awe, looking at the decapitated torso behind glass in the dimly lit gallery in the National Archeological Museum in Dublin. Guests like Moorthy can visit “Old Croghan Man” in the Kingship and Sacrifice exhibit. Moorthy drove three hours south to see the 2,300-year-ago Celtic king with no fingernails—to get a glimpse of the past, of a person frozen in time.
Artifacts and people were buried in bogs for a variety of reasons, McDermott explained. Some objects were thrown in as sacrifices to the gods, some items (or clumsy individuals) fell in when crossing unsteady wooden tracks over marshy wetlands. Evidence suggests some bodies are there because of suicide, others show signs of murder or ritual killings.
According to McDermott, Croghan Man was brutally murdered. By examining his remains, researchers have pieced together that he was restrained by ropes threaded through holes cut into his upper arms. He was then repeatedly stabbed in the chest, his nipples were sliced off, and he was cut in half and thrown in the bog. McDermott said gruesome murders like this were common around parts of northern Europe. “Somebody could be garroted, stabbed, and smashed over the head,” McDermott said.
He and Moore were sent to investigate the site where Croghan Man was discovered to see if they could uncover any signs of wooden stakes, which would have been used to create the wounds in the body’s arms. According to Moore, peatbogs can help solve Iron Age who-dunnit mysteries, but they also contain a rich environmental record.
All of that is at risk from further environmental degradation caused by climate change and human activity.
“Showing and having all of these artifacts—it’s one good thing that human beings can do to the world, because they destroy a lot, they eliminate a lot,” Moorthy said. “We need to preserve artifacts like this for the next generation, for people who will go to museums to see them centuries after.”
Frances Mack is a freelance multimedia journalist specializing in scientific and environmental reporting. She is an editorial intern for the Bulletin ... Read More
Frances Mack
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Fascinating article.
Thank you. Wonderful read.