Seminar Celebrating Bog Culture In Kildare Takes Place Tomorrow

The talk is entitled 'North West Kildare Boglands: Past, Present and Future'

St. Mochua Historical society is hosting a bog seminar tomorrow (26 September).

The talk is entitled 'North West Kildare Boglands: Past, Present and Future'.

The event will be held at Coill Dubh community hall, celebrating the boglands in the area.

In particular, the building of Coill Dubh village by Turf Development Board (reconstituted as Bord na Móna in 1946) will be highlighted.

A number of speakers will feature on the day, which begins at 9:30am with a meet and greet in the hall.

In 1940, Timahoe, the closest section of the Bog of Allen to Dublin became a major employment hub run by the Turf Development Board.

Speaking on Kildare Today, travel expert, owner of Travelextra.ie and one of the speakers at the event, Eoghan Corry, says the boglands have had a huge influence on the county:

"In 1956, exactly 70 years last May, a townland called Blackwood, known as Coill Dubh, mysteriously appeared with a population of over 600, from a standing start of a population of 25 in the 1930s.

"It had a massive impact on everything in the county, the culture, the outlook, the whole way of doing things in Kildare was changed by a large volume of people, primarily from the west of Ireland."

The establishment of 14 "turf camps" in 1941 followed the Emergency, with 10 of them in Kildare, as well as one in Edenderry on the border.

This earned the turf camps the name of the 'Kildare Scheme'.

"Places like Killinthomas came onto the map, Lullymore which is now the turf centre, Drummond where Carbury mushrooms is now, Allenwood which was a small village but became a big village.

"Around Coill Dubh you had three, in that Timahoe and Coill Dubh region a lot of people came from the west of Ireland."

The development didn't just add population numbers to the county, but also shaped aspects of culture and sport, particularly hurling, in the county.

"Killinthomas, which was a non-existent hurling club, came to win four out of five titles in the 40s, at the time the army and the turf camp dominated the hurling.

"That passed on to the next generation, with hurling in Coill Dubh and Éire Óg Chorra Choill. These lads came from Tipperary, Clare, Limerick and Cork, planted in Kildare and blossomed, and that is still there today."

A total of six speakers will feature in Coill Dubh, with MEP Ciarán Mullooly opening the event, joined by historians, nature experts and local people.

A full list of speakers can be viewed here.

The full interview can be heard below: