Turf cutting in Co Roscommon in 1881

Turf cutting in Co Roscommon in 1881, from the Illustrated London News, February 26th, 1881

Cut turf stacked for drying, Lissananny, Co. Roscommon, August 2019

To sit beside the board and drink good wine

And watch the turf smoke coiling from the fire

And feel content and wisdom in your heart,

This is the best of life;

William Butler Yates

Cutting turf to heat homes has been a tradition for millennia, but the EU has ruled that it must stop.