"bog"

bog very moist terrain with a thick spongy layer of mosses. About 17 per cent of the Irish land mass was once covered by extensive bogs, more than any country in Europe except Finland. About one quarter remains intact, notably in the Bog of Allen, Co. Offaly. Turf cut from bogs using a slane, or now mechanically (especially by Bord na Móna), is an important source of fuel. [1505 (Scotland)<bog 'soft'<bogach 'soft ground'] See Bord.

"Scum condensed of Irish bog,
Ruffian, coward, demagogue,
Boundless liar, base detractor,
Nurse of murders, treason's factor."
The Times on Daniel O'Connell's death (1847).

"[John Hourican, CEO of Bord na Móna] is adamant no more bogs will be opened. Uses for cutaway bogs which the board is considering include grassland, afforestation, a return to fenland and wetland, the exploitation of aggregate, which is present in some bogs, and - the new towns."
The Irish Times (26 January 2001).

"I looked carefully around me. Brown bogs and black bogs were arranged neatly on each side of the road with rectangular boxes carved out of them here and there, each with a filling of yellow-brown brown-yellow water. Far away, near the sky, tiny people were stopped at their turf work, cutting out precisely shaped sods with their patent spades and building them into a tall memorial twice the height of a horse and cart. Sounds came from them to the Sergeant and myself, delivered to our ears without charge by the west wind, sounds of laughing and whistling and bits of verses from the old bog-songs."
Flann O'Brien The Third Policeman (1967).