Bog-land is found in almost every part of Ireland; but much of it is dangerous for travel, and all of it has to be drained before the peat can be cut. Causeways lead to the parts that are drained, but there are many deep pools of swampy water in the bogs, which are filled with tufts of spongy moss and slimy tree trunks.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York
Cutting bricks of peat and stacking them up to dry
The turf is cut out in blocks by a man who uses a long-handled spade. He tosses the blocks to his helper who stands waiting for them, and who carries them to a barrow or creel. When the barrow is filled it is wheeled away to higher ground where the blocks of turf are stacked up and dried in the sun and wind.
Kathleen begged to be Danny’s helper, and on the morning when he began cutting in the bog she stood beside him. As fast as he filled her arms with the peat she trudged sturdily away and stacked it up to dry, just as Patrick had taught her.
As she stood waiting for her twentieth load she asked, “How long will it take for this turf to be dry enough to carry home and stack under the shed?”
“It takes all summer to get the peat dry enough to burn,” Danny told her. “In August and September there will be hundreds of little donkeys, all over the country, going to market loaded with big creels of dry peat. Twenty bricks of the peat are sold for a sixpence.”
Danny was cutting turf for Patrick and Uncle Barney in a bog which lay on the border of Lough Gara, and Kathleen stopped occasionally to rest her arms and watch a boat-load of peasants who had hired the next bank to Patrick’s, and who came across the lake to cut it. It was hard work to carry the wet turf, and she was quite ready to go home when Patrick drove the mule down to the lake for them at five o’clock.