A place where it’s hard to draw the line between love and hate

I’ve never quite made up my mind as to whether I love or hate the bog . . . the answer probably lies somewhere in between, but for most of us country lads, it has been an intrinsic part of our summer existence since we were old enough to put a sod standing.

There are people I know – and they’re not ‘lazy articles’ for want of a better expression – who seem to wince in pain at even a mention of an evening’s work in the land of the heather.

Conversely, there are many people I know who will gladly spend large chunks of their time during the season of light, turning, footing and making classy little clamps or dúcháns, the latter being (for the uninitiated) classic pyramids of sods, perfectly circular at the bottom and pointed at the top.

I know of people who have seen 70 Autumns, and even a few more, who don’t bat an eyelid at facing into a couple of thousand yards of turf every summer, picking up a couple of euro for every yard that they stir from the ground and place into convenient boxes of 12 to 16 sods.

Back the years, being able as a young lad to spread the turf, was akin to an initiation process in transitioning to manhood, venturing into that world of usefulness and being valued for your work.

Those of course were the days of the sleán – essentially a timber handled steel spade but with a side-blade to cut each sod individually – normally worked by ‘the man of the house’ who cut out sod after sod from the face bank. It just had to be the most backbreaking and tedious of work.

It was the job of the spreaders to position themselves in exactly the right place to catch each sod lobbed up to them, place in on the timber wheelbarrow, and then hit off to the spreading ground with 20 or so wet lumps of turf on board. One ‘good’ sleáner and two lively young spreaders was considered to be the ideal team.

Footing came next, essentially standing up the turf into little piles known as gróigeáns before normally a re-footing process took place followed by the construction of clamps or small reeks on the banks.

Read Francis Farragher’s column in full in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie