Tim Sullivan shares his views on the biodiversity crisis
Tim spends a lot of his time at Girley Bog near his home. He has been visiting the bog since he was a child and witnessing the changes in biodiversity there, and in other areas of the countryside, has saddened him.
Tim’s message to world leaders at COP26 is to “look at more sustainable agricultural practices and live as part of nature, not apart from nature. With native plants, it supports itself. It is a system. It’s been doing it for thousands of years, but it’s been interrupted, we’re preventing the wheel of nature from spinning.”
27 October 2021, RTE, Sinéad Brennan
Ecologist Anja Murray follows a new generation of young people trying to save Ireland’s peatlands. From 15 moth expert Tim Sullivan to three young scientists from the midlands, all want to protect our bogs and pass on a better legacy than the one that was left to them. Also featuring Jim Ryan, Wetland Ecologist and Kate Flood, Girley Bog Meitheal.
19 March 2019
Drummin Bog committee visits Girley Bog in County Meath
Cathy Fitzgerald and the committee of Drummin bog visit Girley Bog. “We were invited by the Girley Bog Meitheal to learn about their community bog. It was a fact-finding day but social too as we started off with a picnic in the bog. It was a warm mild day with no rain, and we so enjoyed our several hours on this important natural habitat”.
Communities raise bog standards in Abbeyleix
Local groups that cherish our wetlands get a presidential welcome for their projects.
“It was particularly uplifting to hear our own President, Michael D. Higgins, speak with eloquence, and intimate personal knowledge, of the vital social and ecological importance of one our most degraded and contested natural habitats, our wetlands. The occasion was the launch of the Community Wetlands Forum’s first strategic plan, which appropriately took place in a hotel adjacent to Abbeyleix Bog, one of our great and ongoing success stories of local environmental engagement.
24 June 2017, Irish Times, Paddy Woodworth
The bog boy of Girley
Girley Bog, in Co Meath, has many protectors. But nobody brings it to life more vividly than 12-year-old nature enthusiast Tim Sullivan.
No one can step twice into the same river, Heraclitus said. He might have added that each individual walks in a different landscape from their neighbour. We all carry a set of unique perspectives with us, which influence what we see on any patch of land, and how we interpret it. Girley bog, in Co Meath, has been interpreted more richly, and by more people, than most of our threatened peatlands…. More
27 February 2016, Irish Times, Paddy Woodworth
French Foodies to Find, Forage and Feast in Ireland’s Boyne Valley
A group of French food bloggers arrived in Ireland today on 9th October 2015 to feast upon Irish cuisine as they embark on a tailor-made food-focussed trip around Dublin and the Boyne Valley region in Ireland’s Ancient East. The group of bloggers have a combined audience of 360,000 visitors per month to their blogs as well more than 130,000 followers on social media. They will be met in the Boyne Valley by Fáilte Ireland Food Champion and local hotelier Olivia Duff, Headford Arms Hotel, where they will experience tourism and local gastronomy at its best. Highlights of their trip will include a ‘Girley Bog Forage’ with Kate Flood of Meath Eco Tours.
09 October 2015, Failte Ireland
Foraging Walk & Picnic Girley Bog 2015
On one of the few sunny days we have enjoyed this Summer, I found myself at the start of Girley Bog looped walk. Girley Bog is on my doorstep and in a clear example of what is beside you I have to admit I’ve never been on the walk before. We met Kate from Meath Eco Tours at the car park and in true Irish fashion we had to figure out the seed, breed and generation of our respective families. It was a clever ice breaker in the wonderful morning sunshine…More.
18 August 2015, Nicky McDonnell
Foraging for Lunch on Girley Bog 2014
Walk of the Week: Girley Bog
Well, I’ ll be delighted to walk over Girley Bog with you,” was Oliver Usher’s decision. “I’ve loved that bog all my life, and I just don’t seem to tire of being there. That might have been a wee bit of an understatement. Observing the Kells antique dealer as he walked the squelching tracks of Girley Bog, not only naming this flower and that yonder bird and the one beyond that, but taking the time to admire them and puzzle over their ways and means of thriving in the ‘wet desert’ of the Co Meath bogland, Jane and I were privileged to see a true enthusiast at the fountainhead of his inspiration …More
04 August 2009, The Independent, Christopher Somerville
A Bog's Life 