The progress of peatland afforestation in the Republic of Ireland.

Abstract

The area of bogland in Ireland has been very approximately estimated at 1 1/2 million acres, of which less than one-third consists of midland raised bog, and the remainder of blanket bog (Miller, 1957). A small proportion of this blanket bog occurs at high elevations in the east, mainly in Wicklow, but its main development is towards the west coast, where it occurs right down to sea level. It is intended here to deal with the afforestation of the western blanket bogs because it is on these bogs that the most extensive plantings have been made and there that the greatest potentiality seems to lie, and because midland bogs have formed only a small proportion of our peatland plantings in the past, and are unlikely to increase in importance in the future. This is because in the case of the larger raised bogs exploitation for fuel has priority over afforestation, and in the smaller ones acquisition would be complicated by extensive turbary requirements and rights, turbary being scarce in many areas. [...]