{"id":4769,"date":"2011-05-09T10:43:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T10:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/09\/when-i-was-a-kid-to-be-called-a-bogman-was-an\/"},"modified":"2024-02-01T17:54:04","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T17:54:04","slug":"when-i-was-a-kid-to-be-called-a-bogman-was-an","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/09\/when-i-was-a-kid-to-be-called-a-bogman-was-an\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-4769 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/09\/when-i-was-a-kid-to-be-called-a-bogman-was-an\/attachment\/4770\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/tumblr_lkxcfqsuwI1qcztaao1_540-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/tumblr_lkxcfqsuwI1qcztaao1_540-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/tumblr_lkxcfqsuwI1qcztaao1_540-250x250.jpg 250w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/tumblr_lkxcfqsuwI1qcztaao1_540-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 85vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/09\/when-i-was-a-kid-to-be-called-a-bogman-was-an\/attachment\/4771\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/tumblr_lkxcfqsuwI1qcztaao2_540-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/tumblr_lkxcfqsuwI1qcztaao2_540-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/tumblr_lkxcfqsuwI1qcztaao2_540-250x250.jpg 250w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/tumblr_lkxcfqsuwI1qcztaao2_540-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 85vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/09\/when-i-was-a-kid-to-be-called-a-bogman-was-an\/attachment\/4772\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/tumblr_lkxcfqsuwI1qcztaao3_400-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/tumblr_lkxcfqsuwI1qcztaao3_400-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/tumblr_lkxcfqsuwI1qcztaao3_400-250x250.jpg 250w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/tumblr_lkxcfqsuwI1qcztaao3_400-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 85vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>When I was a kid, to be called a &ldquo;bogman&rdquo; was an insult. It meant you were stupid, uncultured, uncivilised. Never mind that many of Ireland&rsquo;s greatest poets and painters were inspired by bogland, by its history, its beauty and its mysteries. I&rsquo;d never really seen the attraction myself, not having grown up near it and catching only glimpses of flat, dark earth on long car journeys. If it wasn&rsquo;t boring it was mildly menacing, with stories of lost souls drowned in bogholes, led astray by a will-o&rsquo;-the-wisp, or human sacrifices buried in the bog by druids or republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So I went to the bog to see what I was missing. And it really is beautiful. It was lonely and windswept, but warm and soft underfoot, with an incredible variety of bizarre, alien plant-life. Pieces of a fallen branch eroded by acid looked like twists of fabric, feathered and fraying. I almost lost my foot a couple of times to treacherous ground, pitch black water gliding into deep footprints. I half hoped to find a body. What I did find was a thin tree, creaking in annoyance as a wooden pallet left leaning against its trunk gradually wore away the bark. I pulled the pallet down, I saved the tree. I half expected someone to grant me wishes.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was a kid, to be called a &ldquo;bogman&rdquo; was an insult. It meant you were stupid, uncultured, uncivilised. Never mind that many of Ireland&rsquo;s greatest poets and painters were inspired by bogland, by its history, its beauty and its mysteries. I&rsquo;d never really seen the attraction myself, not having grown up near it &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/09\/when-i-was-a-kid-to-be-called-a-bogman-was-an\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-4769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-photography","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4773,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769\/revisions\/4773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}