Peat performance

LAUNCH A new film celebrating the Killyconny Bog will be screened in Mullagh

A new film about the rich biodiversity of Killyconny Bog, and its importance as a Special Area of Conservation within the wider environment, will be launched later this week.

The 25 minute documentary will be shown at the Heritage Centre in Mullagh on Friday, May 19, at 8pm, to mark National Biodiversity Week.

The event will also be attended by special guest Seán McDonagh, Columban priest, author and ecologist, and an outspoken critic of the degradation of the environment.

Also known locally as Cloghbally Bog and Mullagh Bog, Killyconny Bog SAC is a 191 hectare raised bog that has played a big role in the local community for generations.

Funded by the Department of Housing and Heritage and produced by the Killyconny Bog Project Committee in partnership with St. Kilian's Heritage Trust, the film includes information about why the peatland habitat is so important, the wildlife that dwell there, its history, and its importance in terms of storing carbon from the perspective of tackling climate change.

Sinéad Fox, Secretary of the Killyconny Bog project committee, said the film was made as much to raise awareness as about the importance of protecting peatland and it is to celebrate the fact there is an “internationally important” living bog right on our doorstep.

This is a Special Area of Conservation, so it’s a protected area, not the same as other peatlands. [Killyconny] has been rewetted by the National Parks and Wildlife Services, to maintain as a growing peatland, and to sequester carbon,” she explains.

The film was shot, produced in the past 12 months, with Navan filmmaker Shay Casserly (Fatal Deviation (1998), Let Those Blues In (2015) and The New Theatre (2019)) brought on board.

Sinéad says the committee is happy with how the bog project, where drain-blocking has re-wetted the damaged areas allowing water-levels to rise to similar levels as the intact bog.

“Sometimes peatlands can cross a tipping point where they effectively revert to woodlands,” says Sinéad. “It’s very important that excessive drainage doesn’t take place here, and undo the important work that has already taken place.”

The first showing of the new film on Friday takes place at 8pm, followed by a second showing at 9.15pm. Refreshments will be served.