A Day in the Bog | Heritage Week 2025

Tom Dillon discusses the art of turf cutting during Heritage Week 2025 @ Kerry Writers’ Museum (photo: Ciarán Walsh | curator.ie).

Back in the day, the natural calendar of the domestic economy of farm families in north Kerry was punctuated by three communal events: the killing of a pig, saving the hay and bringing in the turf. Each created a foundation for many of the traditions associated with rural Ireland and, since the 1960s, have had a special place in the home movie archive created by farming communities.

Curator.ie’s contribution to Heritage Week 2025 was a day-long programme that used film and video collections at Kerry Writers’ Museum as a pretext to engage with the economic, social and cultural impact of bogs and turf cutting in rural Ireland.

Aideen O’Sullivan and Tom Dillon take questions from the floor at A Day in the Bog, Heritage Week 2025 (photo: Ciarán Walsh | curator.ie).

Historian Tom Dillon presented a lively and comprehensive piece on the heritage and folklore of bogs from the perspective of a self-confessed and proud ‘Bogger’. Aideen O’Sullivan introduced a screening of Home Turf (2011), a celebration of the ancient art of cutting turf shot at Killarda Bog near Listowel. The gathering then moved to Derra Bog near Listowel for a walk on the bog guided by Tom Dillon and Pat Sweeney.

Valeriia Matiakh and Patrick Cunningham filmed the event for Scáw-a-ċayla media lab (photo: Ciarán Walsh | curator.ie).