Looking back on summers past – Anton McNulty

Slobbering in the bogs


Anton McNulty

Growing up in pre Celtic Tiger Achill, there was very little talk of holidays during the summer, other than when our cousins and relations were coming ‘home’. When there was turf and hay to be saved and cows to look after there were a few things which took priority and booking into a B&B for a few weeks was not one of them.
During the three months of summer you had to make your own fun and there were plenty of opportunities for doing that. These usually involved slobbering around in the bogs and rivers when your English cousins came home for their annual holiday.
Living in towns and cities, they were fascinated with the open spaces of the bogs in a way we couldn’t really fathom, but we were happy to go along for the ride. Armed with a shovel or spade we usually headed across the road up to the back of the old Saula Hall and started digging and constructing canals between two drains.
For hours we would start digging away at the bog, setting out the course, with the more twists and turns the better. Occasionally we would face a major engineering obstacle in our way in the shape of a bog oak or lump of rock which would force us to alter our plans to either dig around the obstacle or try to remove it.
With the project nearly complete we decided to gather a few flat slabs of stone to act as bridges to allow the ‘traffic’ to travel over. This led to more rambling through the bogs as we tried to uncover enough flat stones which would span our project and yet were light enough to carry.
With everything complete, all we had to do was open up the final phase of the project and allow the water through. As the water started to gush through we would follow the water as it meandered its way to the other side. Occasionally the water would back up when we got the gradient wrong but usually it would make its way through.
We would continue to slobber along for a few more weeks until our cousins headed back to England and then began thinking about planning a new project for the next year.