Jamie Rohu
@jamierohu
Postdoctoral research fellow on the Twelve Bogs project in the Department of History at Trinity College Dublin. Co-funded by Taighde Éireann - Research Ireland and the National Parks & Wildlife Service. All views expressed are my own.
A bee orchid 🐝 popped up in one of my sister’s garden in June. I happened to visit at the time and took this photo. Incredible example of symbiotic relations (although the bee in question is not extant in Ireland) between species.
Lough Ennell, Co. Westmeath. This is a beautiful lake, with birdlife aplenty. However, like most of our waterbodies Lough Ennell faces human-induced pressures. The most obvious is enrichment and pollution arising from agricultural activities in the farmland surrounding it and beyond.
Inside an abandoned Bord na Móna tearoom in a Co. Roscommon bog. An empty barn swallows’ nest on the wall.
Europe is burning 🥵 Meanwhile in the Irish midlands… Turf-cutting remains largely unregulated 😕 My phone couldn’t capture the extent of this pile. Whether it’s authorised or not is anyone’s guess 🤔
Peat in situ is not homogeneous, but layered in strata based upon the types of habitat that produced it. Reed swamps, fen and raised bog all result in varying deposits, with each being used by people for different purposes (eg upper layers used as a growing medium in horticulture).
Out on Cornafulla Bog in Co. Roscommon today meeting local community activists concerned about a wind farm being constructed here. It is windy, but the bog is close to special areas of conservation and adjacent to Clonmacnoise. The peat averages 5m deep, so not an ideal site it would seem 🤔
Had a lovely Americano ☕️ at Tús Maith in the wonderful Kilcormac in Co. Offaly this morning. A thriving business that’s responding to all their customers’ needs (including pupachinos for our four-legged friends). Pleasure as always to visit Kilcormac. A fantastic community 🫡
The campus @ucc.ie is beautiful and a delight to visit today. Whoever is behind the renaturing of the green spaces is doing great work for biodiversity 🐝🐦🐛🐞 #UCC #UniversityCollegeCork #Cork
I’m at the Dublin Mind Body Experience at the RDS today with the Irish Anti-Vivisection Society 🐰 raising awareness about animal experiments 🧫 in Irish labs 🧪 Over 112,000 non-consenting sentient beings are used in tests, much of it for Botox 💉, two thirds of which is for the cosmetics industry.
Save the date!!👇 Interesting conference on agriculture and land-use planned for May (26-27th) this year at the Midlands Park Hotel in Portlaoise, Co. Laois. Details at teagasc.ie/environment/... You can register and/or submit abstracts for presentations from the link above.
My amazing little sister Amy gave me a beautiful hamper of gifts 🎁 for Christmas 🎄 I think these dates will taste particularly good 😊 Free Palestine 🇵🇸
The Centre for Environmental Humanities and @irishwildlifetrust.bsky.social were honoured to host @jcsvenning.bsky.social from @au.dk for our keynote Rewilding lecture to close out our Autumn seminar series. Thanks to our panelists @whittledaway.bsky.social and Anya Murray. Video available soon.
An army of small peat dams (aka berms) placed in deep drains has an enormous effect on the post-industrial peat landscape, ensuring that water is retained. Image: Bord na Móna Derrynagun bog, Lemanaghan, Co. Offaly, March 2025, taken by myself.
Great to meet with @irishdocsenv.bsky.social today at the @stopclimatechaos.bsky.social protest 🪧 in Dublin. Thank you all for coming out and taking a stand against harmful GHG emissions!! I marched with colleagues from @irishwildlifetrust.bsky.social Wildlife is affected by climate change too!!
I attended a Zoom talk on Monday about Finnish commercial semi-state Neova's (Finland's 'version' of Bord na Móna) plans for its post-industrial bogs. What stood out to me was their siting of wind and solar together in the one space. Very economical if they can pull it off. Two notable slides👇
When examining satellite images of the midlands, you will see bogs with long, uniform striations, which are of course former industrial sites. Those bogs getting cut roughly inwards are turbary. But new peatland morphology is slowly emerging: cell bunding, as part of rehabilitation measures👇
I am familiar with the peatscape of the midlands but every now and then I stop to look at a site in more detail. Moyclare Bog SAC is one I've never visited, but it sure sounds great! You can see significant cutting and drainage to the north, but it's still in remarkably good condition See link...
I visited Dublin Waste to Energy power station at Poolbeg today along with colleagues from @tcddublin.bsky.social A remarkable plant, turning rubbish into power. Lots of waste is unfortunately fully recyclable as a result of people not sorting their rubbish properly. Thanks to TCD for organising.
Delighted to host Peter Cairns and Louise Ramsey @tcddublin.bsky.social for Rewilding in Scotland 🏴 This was the second (of three) seminars on the topic. It is a joint collaboration between Trinity’s Centre for Environmental Humanities and @irishwildlifetrust.bsky.social Recording coming soon!
Connemara is a very beautiful part of the country but it faces its challenges. High animal stocking rates lead to hillside erosion. Rhododendron and other invasive species are widespread. However, efforts are ongoing by local people to lessen the human impact on the environment.
In Connemara on the annual Irish Peatland Society road trip checking out water table management on farmed peat soils. Beautiful, vast landscapes. A very different feel to the midland raised bogs that I’m used to 🤔
An outdoor classroom at Abbeyleix Bog, Co. Laois. If this was what school was like when I was growing up I might have went in a bit more often!! 🤣
Clearly doing this isn’t cheap. Hiring the wide-tracked excavators necessary is expensive. Putting in plastic dams isn’t ideal for obvious reasons but is more practical in smaller rewetting projects. For landscape-scale rehabilitation peat dams are the preferable option. 2/2
Bog drain-blocking can be achieved with both peat and plastic dams. An excavator is required for the former. Peat is removed from an adjacent ‘borrow pit’ (which thereafter becomes a shallow depression), a foundation is dug across the drain and the peat placed into this. 1/2
Notice: Tomorrow evening from 19:00 the @irishwildlifetrust.bsky.social in collaboration with @tcddublin.bsky.social Centre for Environmental Humanities will host a two hour seminar on #Rewilding with @irishrainforest.bsky.social Mary Reynolds (We Are the Ark) and @whittledaway.bsky.social 1/2