Walk for the Weekend: Boggeragh Mountains, Co Cork

Half an hour from the edge of Cork city lie some truly remote mountains: the Boggeragh. And across these unsung uplands cuts the E8 European long-distance walking route, which runs from west Cork to Istanbul, and briefly joins the road at Nad Bog (Nead an Fhiolarir, the Eagle's Nest), whose name reminds us that this was once the habitat of golden eagles, hunted to extinction in the 19th century.

Yet there is plenty of natural bounty on offer. Down the road the Duhallow Way cuts west into an old forestry trail before crossing open hillside. This is the Boggeragh Mountains National Heritage Area (NHA). Until a ministerial order in 2005 this was a Coillte clear-fell, yet the bog is already in rude health.

The hills are alive here. Starlings flock across the valley while golden plovers – a protected bird species – dart behind hazel, crowberry and bilberry just off the path.

There are amazing plants too: devil’s-bit scabious, goldenrod, and all sorts of bog moss, ling heather and (towards the Glencam river) purple moorgrass and various rushes.

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At the Glencam came notice that a quarter (236 acres) of this NHA is for sale to any farmer interested in rough grazing, turf-cutting or grant-assisted forestry.

Ireland has 8 per cent of all the blanket bog in the world. In its wet natural state, peatland plants here sequester carbon-dioxide at a rate to rival any forest.

With the Government spending €5 million on restoring 1,800 hectares of raised bog in the midlands, it seems perverse that here even a protected NHA is subject to turf-cutting and sheep-grazing. (Grazing at Seefin has already eroded much of it.)

This is the sort of unpopulated landscape in which deer and wolves could thrive, locking up carbon. Our inability to look at any natural habitat without trying to improve it, plant it or cut it down is mind-boggling.

With this slightly dispiriting thought in mind, I entered the Coillte plantation of Carrigduff wind farm, where a diverse edge quickly gives way to Sitka spruce monocultures.

Irish people have been talking about rewilding Ireland’s landscape as far back as the Wooing of Étaín. What a shame that, when we finally got around to planting trees in the last century, we planted low-quality timber in such a dense, controlled way as to preclude natural flora and fauna.

Since 2017 Coillte has given the State an average annual dividend of €10 million at the cost of clear-felled hillsides. I’m sure many people would be happy to forgo this public dividend in return for the million acres of commercially farmed forest to be left alone.

I followed the Duhallow Way down to the bridge over the Owenagluggin, before walking due west up and around Carrigduff, returning via Glentaneaghtagh, home of the wind turbines of Knockduff wind farm.

Some bridle at these bold structures, but I think they’re rather nice. It could be the lack of human contact all morning (this is one of the least populated areas of the country) but there is something magnetic about their gentle whirring. They stand like modern temples, austere and terrible.

I approached with a sense of awe; alone in a forest thicket with a wind-turbine temple before me. But the day was advancing, the midwinter skies were darkening again, and I had dinner waiting for me at home.

The Boggeragh Mountains National Heritage Area

Start/finish: Where the Duhallow Way meets the R579.

Getting there: Follow the R579 from Cork along the wooded river Shournagh through Cloghroe until you see a signpost on the right for Nad Bog. Take next left.

Suitability: Easy, 2-3 hours in waterproof footwear.

Distance: 5km

Caution: There are no shops here for miles so bring a flask and food.