Neolithic and Bronze Age Landscapes of North Mayo: Report 2011

Probed Surveys: Erris, Céide Fields and Belderg More
Seamas Caulfield
This draft chapter outlines the progress and results of Caulfield’s main survey projects. It requires
editing and integrating with illustrations. These will include the use of maps of the Céide complex at
different stages, showing the development of the project.
Traditional Turf Cutting in North Mayo
Hand cutting of turf for fuel varies from one region to the next due to the nature of the bogs being
cut and the extent of bog available. In the case of the deep, rapidly growing Midland bogs, the
raised bogs may be five or more metres in depth but confined in area. Turf cutting in these bogs
involves a team of at least three people with only one person cutting, another throwing up the sods
to the bank and another piling the cut sods on a special flat-bed wooden wheelbarrow and wheeling
the sods away from the bank to a spreadfield where they are placed flat on the ground to dry. The
top metre or more of the bog is a lightly compacted sphagnum which will not dry and condense so
that even if relatively dry, easily absorbs massive amounts of water when left exposed. This metre
or more of top is discarded by throwing it into the hole left by last year’s cutting. As many as twelve
to fifteen ‘spits’ or ‘tops’ of turf are cut below this, very often the flooding of the boghole rather
than reaching the base of the bog is what terminates the cutting. The turf becomes more
compacted and therefore dries more densely as one goes downwards though the very dense turf at
the base lacking in any binding fibre tends to disintegrate if dried in strong sunshine. The sods range
from 10 to 12 cm in square cross-section and from 30 to 40 cm in length cut with a ‘sleán’ or
turfspade with a wing at right angles to the normal cutting edge which allows the cutting of the
regular square sectioned sod with one thrust and lift of the spade. The turfspade comes in both left
and right forms for use by left and right cutters. To cut left-handed is to have the left hand as the
lifting hand half way down the handle while the right hand provides some thrust and controls the
spade. A left-handed turfspade has the wing on the right hand side of the spade so that the sod
when thrown to the left of the cutter is thrown away from the wing. A right-handed turfspade has
the wing on the left side for the same reason. The bank of turf cut in a deep raised bog may be up to
two metres wide and may be no more than ten metres in length.
In regions of extensive blanket bog such as North Mayo, bog depth can vary from a metre or less on
slopes to over four metres on flat ground. Gradient rather than altitude is the controlling factor and
four metres of bog can be found on flat hill tops as well as in valley bottoms. In North Mayo turf
cutting is a one-man operation. The top ten to fifteen centimetres of the growing ‘scraw’ is
‘scrawed’ with the traditional general purpose spade along a bank face 80 to 90 cm wide and one
hundred metres or more in length. The first ‘top’ seven to nine sods wide is thrown from the
turfspade in a ‘corraí’ or continuous heap one and a half to three metres in from the bank edge. The
second top is thrown onto the vacant one and a half metre strip between the bank edge and the first
corraí. The third and if present a fourth top is cut and thrown into the boghole. Irrespective of the
depth of the bog, no more than four tops is ever cut because of the difficulty of spreading it
afterwards. In deeper blanket bog where two or more tops remain uncut, after ten to twelve years
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