‘We’re being left with nothing’: Ireland’s turf wars expose rural grievances

A ban on selling smoky fuels was meant to cut carbon emissions, tackle air pollution and conserve ancient bogs. Instead, it has fuelled a tense narrative of urban elites versus rural poor

The peat sods lay spread on a field, at the end of which was a mound of earth the colour of dark chocolate. It was the edge of a bog, a habitat thousands of years in the making. A mechanised cutter with steel claws had gouged and sliced some of it into chunks that now covered an area the size of a football pitch. Enough, once dried and bagged, to heat a house for an Irish winter.

Some environmentalists would consider this tableau in County Kildare - one replicated across rural Ireland at this time of year - akin to a crime scene, a mad, destructive assault on a precious natural resource, turning a carbon sink into a smoky fuel.