Turf Development Board/Bord na Mona

The recent announcement of the cessation of peat extraction by Bord na Mona highlights the important part ancient boglands have played in creating jobs in south Kildare. As early as the final year of the Great Famine the bog at Kilberry was the location of a manufacturing process which produced chemicals from peat. Kilberry was also associated with briquette making as early as 1855 when an English entrepreneur opened a briquette factory there. However, the process of using air-dried peat for compression by machinery proved unsuccessful and the factory soon closed. A Bog Commission established by the House of Commons considered between 1804 and 1813 the developmenet potential of bogs in Ireland and “the practicability of draining and cultivating them, and the best means of effecting the same.” The Commission was set up as it was believed that upwards of one-seventh of Irish land which was bogland might usefully be brought into use for agricultural purposes. Glassealy resident Thomas Rawson had made this case in his book “The Satistical Survey of County Kildare”. Amongst the Commissioners appointed was Henry Hamilton, an agent for the Duke of Leinster, who owned the largest land holding in the County of Kildare. The Bog Commission submitted four reports to Parliament, but because of private property rights these reports made little difference to the development of Irish bogs. However, the surveys carried out on behalf of the Commission and the maps prepared by their various surveyors were to prove of use to the Turf Development Board when it was established in 1934. In south Kildare in the early part of the 19th century one local initiative saw the growing of flax in boglands supported by grants from the Irish Linen Board. Place names in Athy which reflect that early 19th century flax industry are “Bleach Yard” and ‘The Bleach.” Rev. Thomas Kelly, the Ballintubbert native and founder of the religious group “the Kellyites”, was involved in setting up a weaving shed in Athy which he referenced in his published pamphlet “Some account of James Byrne of Kilberry addressed principally to the Roman Catholic Inhabitants of Athy and its Neighbourhood.” Following the setting up of the Turf Development Board, the first bog considered for development for machine-produced turf was the Kilberry bog. The bog, which was in private ownership between the Earl of Drogheda, the Irish Land commission and some private owners, was acquired by the Turf Board in 1936. However, following its acqusition it was decided that Kilberry bog would be used for the production of peat moss rather than machinery turf. The production of peat moss in Kilberry was to start in 1939 but the Turf Board reversed its decision a year later and decided to concentrate its peat moss operation in Turraun, Co. Offaly. Hand-won turf continued to be harvested in Kilberry but this work was discontinued after a few years as the local peat moss provided poor fuel material. In the final year of World War II, Todd Andrews of the Turf Development Board travelled to Sweden following a Board decision approved by the wartime Department of Supplies to use Kilberry for the production of peat moss. It was there that Andrews met Konrad Peterson, a Latvian who took part in the 1905 revolution against Russia and who had been a student in Dublin during the 1916 Rising. Peterson was invited to manage the new Kilberry factory, which he did on taking up employment in 1946. Work on building the factory commenced in the latter part of that year. Peterson remained in charge of the Kilberry plant until 1958, when he transferred to the experimental station in Newbridge. He died in 1981 and is buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery, where I attended a ceremony a few years ago organised by the Latvian Ambassador to Ireland to honour a man who is highly regarded in his native country as a Latvian patriot. The Turf Development Board became Bord na Mona in 1946 and the following year peat moss production started in Kilberry. Wihin a few years the Kilberry factory was supplying markets in America, Britain and the Channel Islands. In the mid 1960s Bord na Mona began to market peat moss for horticultural purposes and that marketing campaign was enhanced by the Board’s decision some years earlier to market peat moss under the brand name ‘Shamrock.” In 1964 another peat moss factory was opeened in Cuil na Mona near Portlaoise, where Athy man Jimmy Dooley was manager for a number of years before retiring as Chief Executive of Bord na Mona’s Horticultural Product Division in 2004. In August 1974 the Kilberry factory was destroyed by fire and had to be rebuilt. Twenty years later a new bark processiong plant was installed in Kilberry. This followed a campaign by conservationists to reduce the use of peat and instead use alternative material. In time the Kilberry works was used to store and compost grain and green waste for use in producing horticultural growth material. Many local men and women have worked for Bord na Mona over the years. For Leaving Certificate students of the 1940s and 1950s, Bord na Mona, with the ESB and county councils offered the most sought-after opportunities for employment not otherwise available in rural areas. Today, Kilberry is the centre of a vibrant rural community whose work life is inextricably linked to the past, and hopefully continuing, success of the Kilberry peat factory.