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Join us for a monthly library chat. We'll talk about a variety of library related topics, from books to events, and plans for the future.
Hello and welcome to Westmeath Libraries's podcast. My name is Caroline Barry and this month we have a fantastic program for you. I managed to interview a few people so that makes it all the more interesting. I got hold of Eugene Dunbar, a retired schoolteacher who has done amazing amounts of work here in Westmeath, particularly in relation to bogs. And he is a font of knowledge with regard to the entomology, the geomorphology and the nature of our boglands. I also managed to get a hold of, very briefly, while she was doing a public consultation. Melanie McQuaid, who is the heritage officer here in Westmeath. During this podcast, at the end of the podcast, I'll give you a rundown of some of the things that are happening in the libraries here in Westmeath. But remember, you can always find out more information on W w w dot westmeath culture dot i. E.
Okay. Well, I'm very lucky here to be joined in the library by Eugene Dunbar. And Eugene is. Did you set up ETHOS?
Eugene: And I was very much involved in the setting up of it.
Caroline: Okay. So just to tell our listeners. ETHOS is Everything Tyrellspass Has On Show and really it's about celebrating this little village in the middle of Westmeath and the environs. So what has ETHOS done
Eugene: Well, we started about 12 years ago and I am a retired history and geography teacher. So I've always had a huge interest in the local environment from a geographical point of view and from a historical point of view. The ecology, the geology, the geomorphology, the ESCAS, the bogs that and I've been bringing children or young teenagers out to the bogs, you know, for going back to the eighties really. I'm from Limerick and
Caroline: I was born in Limerick City.
Yeah, yeah. Very different countryside. It is much more lush yet. So then you came up to the Midlands
Eugene: Came up to the Midlands and the minute I saw the bog kind of fell in love with it. Yes, I did. Absolutely. I was mesmerized by the whole concept, you know, and it's just and I've learned so much about it. And since, you know, and I just found it a fantastic place. Well, anyway, that's my kind of background.
A group of us got together and we started to kind of explore our wider environment and the bogs and the eskers and the history of the village and the architecture and all this kind of stuff. So basically we kind of organized events during the course of the year, you know, we kept specialists and speakers down to talk. We had somebody on bog bodies with John Feehan over who did the the eskers with us and we did, we did lots of stuff.
Caroline: Let's talk about the bogs.
Eugene: Yeah. Okay.
Caroline: Because you've done amazing stuff. You're being very, very coy here. It's that kind of thing. But actually you have done amazing stuff, particularly around what the you've been proactive in that sink, the European carbon sink bog, that's happening up in Cloncrow. And then you've also developed a pathway across the bog. And then I'm also really interested in moths trapping. Yeah. So let's start with. Okay, wherever you want to jump from touch to the carbon sink system. Yeah.
Eugene: Yeah. Well the I suppose traditionally, obviously bogs were places where people cut turf and then there was a kind of a keen interest arose around the bogs and basically the ecology of the bogs, but was mainly concerned with flora and fauna, looking at the plants and looking at the wildlife and about what was surface stuff if you like to know. And in more recent years, you know, the scientific people have discovered that that the bogs are in fact a store of carbon. We've measured we've measured depths of ten meters of peat on Cloncrow. And a meter of peat takes a thousand years to grow.
So you're talking about peat that has been growing and developing for 10,000 years, basically since the end of the last ice age. And that peat is pure carbon, you know. So that's the big climatic issue, if you like. The hydrology then comes into it, if the bog is wet and if it's kept wet, then that carbon is secure. It's like embedded and it's, it's locked in. And in fact, not only that, but if the surface of the bog is rehabilitated and becomes an active raised bog, it now begins to absorb carbon this way. And so it's building up a store of carbon. But the big issue is to keep the carbon that's there, keep it in the ground.
Caroliine: Well, nobody's farmed that bog for a long time.
Eugene: Nobody has. No, there hasn't. But and if you look at the old maps, yeah, there's a map from 1820 and which was done by the British government at that stage. Did they surveyed an aweful lot of bogs because they had the intention of farming them basically off and growing crops, I think it was hemp and flax and all this kind of stuff. They were just investigating that and did an enormous survey work. And those maps are available. And if you look at the map of Cloncrow in 1820 and compare it with the maps of today the bog in 1820 was twice the size it is now.
Caroline: But is that because there's deciduous tree are growing on
Eugene: That's one issue. But that's more recent. What happened was that people, obviously, people began to cut turf, you know, and that created a cut away area. And then on the edge of the bog, especially in the 1970s and 1960s and seventies, people began to drain the bogs to to actually turn them into farmland, basically into pasture. And so that kind of accounts for a huge loss of of habitat.
Caroline : Well, I was only up there the other morning. Yeah. And I saw two deers. One of them. I thought one of them was albino which is really odd. Very magical to suddenly arrive upon. Talk about the moss that has been encouraged to grow.
Eugene: So I mean the key plant on the bog is the sphagnum moss. All the plants that grow on about on an active raised bog they're highly specialized. They have adapted to a very harsh environment. It's an open space. It's a wilderness. You know, the winds will blow across it and very little will survive.
But Sphagnum is one of the key plants. It is the key plant. It's a moss. But the incredible thing about it is that it derives all its nutrients from rainwater. So it doesn't have a root. Like when we think of the plant, you think of a root system,roots going down deriving nutrients from the ground and this is what supports the plant process. But Sphagnum Moss actually derives all this nutrients just from rainwater incredibly, you know, so just little droplets of rain, if you look at it sphagnum under a microscope, you see these at the cellular structure and you think that there are no nutrients in rainwater but there are. And that's what it sort of survives and that's what it feeds on. And that would be other kind of microbiological kind of stuff going on there as well. But so basically, the sphagnum moss isn't tied to the ground because it doesn't have a root system. So next year's Sphagnum will grow on top of this year's sphagnum and the year after will grow on top of that. So it's building up and up and up and up. Now when I say it's building up, it's you know, a centimeter in a hundred years. So, you know, it's a very fragile thing. But it's incredible.
Caroline: It's very magical. One of the reasons I'm fascinated by bog is it's behind my grandmother's house. She was born on Christmas Day in 1906. And as a child, I used to be afraid going up there right now around that area is there are a few fairy forts right there. There's also a Sitka forest which I'd like tosee the back of.
Eugene: That is going.
Caroline : Is it? Are they going to plant decidous?
Eugene: No, they're going to reclaim the peat. They're going to rewet the bog.
Caroline: So at the moment, that bog, Cloncrow Bog is part of a project, isn't it? A European project, yes.
Eugene: So that's the Care Peat project. So that project is technically finished. It was a trial area. And there are students. Ph.D. student Elena is in there and she measures the carbon emissions from the bog before they rewet it, and she has all that data and then they rewret the bog, they block the drains and put in this system of what they call cell bunding. And then after all that restoration work, she re-measures the carbon emissions. So so the data is there. The scientific data is there to say if you rewet a hectare of peatlands, you have to know that you're actually saving so many tonnes of carbon.
Caroline: So we could actually be carbon rich.
Eugene: We could be. Oh yeah. I mean, yeah. So that's the oh yeah. But the thing is its carbon loss is a big issue. But if you can restore it from losing carbon to actually absorbing carbon. And to do that you must you must rewet it. Now when they say wet it, you see that people have a misunderstanding of that they think flooding, that kind of thing. But the water table is the key issue, like so the water table is where the saturation point is down underground. So if you raise the water table by raising the water table every inch you raise it, every meter, you raise it, you're actually locking in all that that carbon.
So even though you mightn't be restoring it 100%, you are actually locking it in. And the higher up you bring the water table.
Caroline: Well this July must surely have assisted
Eugene: Oh, God. Yeah, it did. But it's incredible because we have, we have a piezometer down near the village and he's measuring the, the, the fluctuation in the water table. And this data is actually been recorded instantly and the data has been sent down to Galway University. And I have access to that and I pull out my phone and I see where the water table is and I get a map to see how it fluctuated over the summer and you see it rising and falling, You know in very dry periods, it was way down.
Then we had the wet more recently, yeah, it has risen up. But the key thing is that they want to be able to restore sufficiently that the water table will be held as close as possible to the surface so.
Caroline : so is that those systems, the cell-bunding? So you need that kind of architectural system and caretaking.
Eugene : Yes. Oh, absolutely.
Caroline: I'm going to jump because you're a very knowledgeable man. I managed to trap you like one of your moth. So you're going to be coming in sometime over Christmas to talk about these amazing things. You've also built a pathway. You got funding to build, which I have not been down. So you and I will walk that beautiful pathway into the bog. But what I want to talk about, because I had a fabulous sighting and of a the tiger-hawk moth. And also a hawk moth with a probiscus a few years ago. That's more rare. Yeah, but talk to us about that because I mean, I know we're exceptionally lucky where I walk we have rare orchids, natural wild vetch, the most abundant St John's worth. So we've got this fantastically diverse and rich, uncontaminated and flora in the ditches and the hedgerows, but the moths really interest me. So tell me how you got into moths.
Eugene : Oh, I suppose I was more interested in butterflies initially, you know, because butterflies are just incredible creatures. And like people said, oh, god, that's a very fanciful kind of occupation to be chasing butterflies. But butterflies are actually a very real barometer of the state of the ecology. I record butterflies and then I send my recordings up, I post them up to the National Biodiversity Archive and then I get reports down and you'd see each year, you know, numbers are dropping. And since the 1980s, some of the butterflies species have dropped by over 50% by 60%?
Carline: Really? because if I walk, I feel like I'm in a magical tapestry sometimes
Eugene: The key is habitat. If the habitat is right, they're there. But as as we kind of deplete and destroy the habitat, then they're gone and they will actually converge in areas where the habitat is good.
Caroline : So can you tell me the name of the little blue butterfly?
Eugene : Yeah, well, you've got, And I hate this term, they call it the Common Blue.
Caroline: And I'd see an awful lot of red admirals. Yeah, a plethora of them. But this blue butterfly fascinates me.
Eugene : Well there are three species of blue actually, that's the Common Blue. And the male and female are very different. The female actually has a very brown but a beautiful kind of rim of kind of orange and red around the upper wing and the underwing is absolutely mottled. It's like stained glass windows, beautiful.
But the females actually stay very close to the ground. You will see the blue, the male is the blue one, and he's patrolling all the time
Eugene: But you have the Holly Blue then which is another.
Caroline: And it's kind of a periwinkle color?
Eugene: Yeah. They are exotic, you know, and, and my favorite one is the Green Hairstreak. And it's incredible. it's a fluoresce green fluorescent. And its tiny. It's absolutely stunning.
Caroline: But moving to the moths because. Right. This moth I saw in my own back garden, it felt almost like an intrusion from the otherworld. It was so exotic.
Eugene: Have you seen the larvae for that?
Caroline: No I haven't. But it was fantastic. Just describe it to the listeners. A fantastic scarlet body. Yes, it have these zebra black and white wings. And then when it opened its upper wings underneath was this scarlet underwing with black spots.
Eugene: Well the moths are incredible, absolutely incredible, you know, and moths and butterflies are the same. They belong to the same species, like, and they say that actually the butterflies evolved from the moths. There are over 3000 species of moth in Ireland , we've only 20 I think it's 29 species of butterfly, but there are over 3000 species of moth.
But we don't see the moths because, you know, most of them, not all of them, but most of them they fly at night.
And people say, why are they, you know, because some of them are spectacularly colorful. And you say, why are they so colorful? And the reason they're so colorful is because they are nocturnal. And color means nothing to do with the nighttime. But during the day, they have to rest up and they will they they need camouflage. And so they need, they need greens and red and blue.
How I got into moths, I suppose, I met Terese Kelly, who was from National Parks and Wildlife, she kind of introduced me to it because she told me she was going to go down to Cloncrow, she was going to build a moth trap and to I said, Jeez, I'd love to go along with you, you know, so which I did.
And then and she actually left me her moth trap because I could continue on to do it. It's a fluorescent light, it's a tubular light, and there's a box underneath and it attracts the moths. And they actually drop down into the box. so you can see it.. And then you come in the morning and you look at them and you record them and you photograph them if possible, and then you release them straight away. So the say moth trapping. But you're just capturing them.
You have to put them trap out at nighttime, at dusk and then you've to come back at dawn really, you know, to release it because you're not supposed to allow them to rest in the boxes for too long, you know, especially especially in the summertime because it'll heat up.
So you might go out at six in the morning or seven in the morning. But it's fascinating because I remember when I went with Terese, we went down and I couldn't believe the surface of the bulb was just covered with spider web. Covered. The dew made it visible. Unreal.
So people say there's no life on the bog, But this is amazing. These spiders are, you know, this they're carnivores.
Caroline: I had a friend who I went to college with who was doing a degree in on the Book of Esther, And he's got interested in spiders. And now he forgot about the book of Esther. Know, just got totally trapped by spiders, and discovered several new spiders
What's the best moth you've ever seen?
Eugene : The best. Well, I suppose the most intriguing one would be the Emperor Moth. It's confined basically to, am I totally right in this? but it's more or less confined to the bogs. The thing with moths and with butterflies. People say you should grwo plants to your garden like Buddleia, it's a terrible plant, it's a real invasive species. Yeah. Like it has destroyed habitats like.
Well I mean I have two Buddleia the thing in the garden but people grow these plants, and they see the butterflies coming to them or whatever because the butterflies are doing there's that they're nectarine, they're feeding, right. But the key thing is the plant where they lay their eggs. So that's that if that plant is not there they're gone. So the female will lay the eggs on this food plant. And some of them will, they might have a range of food plants that they can lay on like with Giant Meadow Bowns. And these are out in the fields, in the meadows, and they'd grow anywhere. But some of them are tied specifically just to 1 to 1 plant. And the thing is, you know, if that plant disappears, if someone sprays or something or whatever, then that the habitat is gone as a breeding ground. You've a breeding, you have a nursery kind of element to it and you have you have a restaurant element to it
Caroline : Have you seen an Emperor Moth
Eugene: Oh yea, I actually reared Emperor Moths. I was down on the bog, and an Emperor had come in. You put eggs, you put egg cartons into your moth trap, because they're just nooks and crannies and then the can rest during the nighttime. But the emperor moth layed eggs on the carton. So I took these and I brought them home and I knew the food plant..
Caroline: And what's the food plan?
Eugene : Well, the food plant for the emperor moths will actually feeds the feed on heather. They lay on heather. And the foor plant for the caterpillar, that's what we're talking about. They lay their eggs on the heather and blackthorn and whitethorn as well, which would be on the very edge of the bog. They lay on that as well. So I brought them home and then over the summer I had to put in blackthorn and whitethorn and get some heather. When the when the caterpillars emerged and then they grew up and then they pupated you know
Caroline: What color is and Emperor Moth.
Eugene : Oh its the most glorious, it has to big eye spots on it. And it's very, very very large and it's multicolored. I'll show you some photographs.
Caroline : Well, you're going to be given a talk, so that could be a slide!
I think I'll cut it here, because the two of us could go on forever. But just to say to people listening, this is Eugene Dunbar and he will be giving a talk here in the library. So thank you very much Eugene.
Eugene : It's a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Caroline : Hello, everyone. And we're very fortunate to be joined by Melanie McQuaide the wonderful heritage officer here in Westmeath, County Council. And Melanie, you've just put together the draft plan, it is possibly finalized by the time this goes on air. But give us just an overview of what heritage is and what it is defined as in the plan.
Melanie : Okay, so heritage is very broad and technically it's defined by the 1995 Heritage Act, which would list all the components of Heritage. So you're talking about built heritage, the archeological monuments, your heritage objects and flora, fauna, geology and shipwrecks which doesn't much apply here in Westmeath.
Caroline : You'd be surpised what you might find in the bogs.
Melanie : Or well in our lakes. Indeed, there be underwater archeology for sure. So all of that. And then a later definition. In around 2003, UNESCO's recognized intangible cultural heritage. So that is the heritage that you cannot see or touch. So, for example, the skill behind hurling or lace making, it's the skill that's the heritage that they're nodding to in the intangible. But of course that refers also to our oral history folklore and all the other intangibles.
Caroline : We're very fortunate, I work with a wonderful colleague, Manas, and he's very good local historian and he will be giving a talk on the Big Wind sometime now in October.
Which was 1830s, I believe and I believe Kilbeggan and was more or less destroyed by fire. And apparently water was flown out of the canal, something I haven't heard before ever. So Manus is fascinating and Manus will be giving that talk. I'm very interested in folklore, I'm very interested in fairy lore. So I'm hoping to start kind of investigating what happens. Yeah. So just with regard to this plan, how long is it going to run for?
Melanie : So we're in the process of preparing a new heritage plan, and it will run from 2024 up til 2030. So that's what, six years?
Caroline : And I is there anything in regard to the heritage that stands out for you. What's your main interest Melanie
Melanie : Oh, wow. There are no favorites. No. Look, I just find the whole subject interesting. I suppose we talk about my background would have been in archeology, but to me all heritage is of interest.
Caroline : So you've seen our piece of what wood out here in Kilbeggan Library
Melanie : I have. How unusual is that.
Caroline : It's been sitting out there for 20 years! For those of you who don't know, we have a piece of wood that was split open in the 1950s and inside miraculously was discovered the carving of a church, which they say all relates back to penal times.
Did you do any work, I'm just talking about archeology, during the excavations here?
Melanie : Not in Westmeath, actually, no. But I suppose the nature of the job would be to move around, so I did do lots of other place things.
Caroline : I do remember them digging the Crannog over here which is fascinating because it just looks like a field. Yeah.
Melanie : Yeah. And then of course, there's Ballinderry Crannog, which would be close to Moate, which was a hugely interesting site. It was excavated back in the early 1930s by the Henkin expedition from Harvard, and they found some wonderful artifacts there. So they know from that that it was a high status, probably a royal site, a royal dwelling. I don't know, people might know the Ballinderry gaming boards, which is, we think, like a chess board, but it's a beautifully carved wooden piece. It is in the National Museum.
And that was the wonderful Melanie McQuade. Melanie is the heritage officer here in Westmeath. And we will definitely get Melanie back in and we'll have a chat with her because as you can see, she's a font of knowledge. By the time this programme airs Melanie will have put together the heritage plan for the next six years of Westmeath. So to find out more, you can go to Westmeath Culture Dot i.e.
It's October, so that means it is a Children's Book Festival month. So it's very important not only for children's authors, but for children and families. There will be loads of things happening in local libraries. Usually there's events and speakers and really the events can include anything, but they're not limited to author visit days, craft days, storytimes and sessions, book clubs, movie days and STEM Days. So look in to your local library and find out what is going on for the whole month of October to celebrate Children's Book Festival. So thank you to all my guests who called in to come back in library, to have a chat, and to remind you that Eugene will be giving a talk at some point before Christmas on Cloncrow Bog and the environs.
With regard to what is happening in the libraries in Westmeath in the month of October, there's a couple of new groups starting. I suppose I'd like to draw your attention to the new Irish speaking group that's going to be starting in Kilbeggan library on Thursday, the 5th of October, at 4.30 in the afternoon. So, beidh grúpa beaga ag túsadh, 4.30 De Deardaoin, 5th October. And we are opening the group up to anybody who's interested in improving their Irish. We will have a little dictionary page that we will pass around on a particular subject or a vocab sheet, would be more the way to say it, that we will pass around on a new subject each week and we'll all just get to try and use and learn new words and speak as gaeilge one another. Manus who works here, is a fluent Irish speaker and I'm very interested in Irish. So myself and Manus minus are setting the group up, and opening it up to sixteen year olds and over. So that leaves a bit of room for anybody who's interested in improving their speaking Irish or Irish spoken word and who may be doing exams.
And then another group that's starting and it started as a result of the workshops that were funded by the Heritage Office here in Westmeath, there is a new group emerging out of that with Emma Cassidy. So Emma in the summer ran a traditional Irish heritage crochet lace workshops to celebrate Heritage Week and people were so fascinated they traveled from all over the country to come and study with Emma from as far afield as Donegal and Wicklow.
She has now started a whole new group they're going to meet once a month. Places are limited, so if you are interested, call the library here and I will pass your details on to Emma.
Now, are you interested in self-publishing? If you're a writer and you're interested in this, there is a self-publishing workshop taking place with Anthony Viney in Mullingar Library on Saturday, the 7th of October, at 10 a.m. until 1 p.m..
So Anthony is, as I say, an expert on this. If you can't make the Mullingar workshop, Anthony will also be going out to Castlepollard Library and over two evenings, two Thursday evenings. He kept the same workshop. So in Castlepollard Library, his workshop dates would be the 12th of October and the 19th of October and the time for those evening workshops is 6.00 in the evening until 7.30.
So a fantastic opportunity to learn the whole technical and editorial aspects of self-publishing. You don't need to pay to these events. These are free, but you do need to book. So go online and book your place now.
Do you have a child aged between eight and 12 years of age? Are you wondering, what are you going to do with them on Saturday, the 14th of October? Well, if you're wondering what you might like to do with them, why not come along to Moate Library or Kilbeggan library? Because the author, James Hannon, will be visiting the both libraries that morning and he will be discussing his debut children's novel, The Thrilling Adventures of an extremely Boring Boy. And this book tells about the little boy called Barry Dunphy, who's ten years of age, who lives in a small town called Ballinacraic.
What's that got to do with anything you might ask? Well, it turns out that Ballinacraic is the superhero and adventure capital of the world, so very interesting. James is a native of Athlone. He's also a primary school teacher, so very used to engaging with young people. He will be giving his workshop and reading in Moate at 10.30 on the 14th and in Kilbeggan library at 11.30 on Saturday the 14th. So hopefully we'll see you there.
Well, that's it for this month's podcast. So thank you very much for joining me, Caroline Barry and I hopefully will have more interviews for you next month and will outline further events that are taking place in your local library. Remember that there are constantly groups running in the library. There are regular groups that meet, for example, knitting groups, crochet groups, baby and toddler groups, crafts groups, the regular book clubs, there are are pop up Lego play times. There's just so much to do. So whenever you need to find out anything, go online to Westmeath Culture dot IE. Meanwhile, I hope you have a lovely October and I'll be back again in November with more news. Thank you.