Clara bog

Clara Bog
Irish: Dúlra Phortach Chlóirthigh
Location	County Offaly, Ireland
Governing body	National Parks and Wildlife Service
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Clara Bog is one of the largest relatively intact raised bogs remaining in Ireland. It lies southeast of the R436 regional road between the village of Ballycumber and the town of Clara, in County Offaly. Much of the bog is state-owned and managed as a nature reserve covering some 460 ha. A Special Area of Conservation covers 836 ha.

The bog was formed in a depression, originally a shallow lake, at the end of the last ice age. An esker left by retreating glaciers cut off drainage to the north (the river Brosna catchment). Although usually classed as a relatively intact bog, it has been negatively affected by peat extraction and by the construction of the Clara to Rahan road in the late 18th century. The bog subsided up to six meters following bisection by the road and associated drainage. The dome structure of the bog was also changed by the road, leaving two domes, a western one and an eastern one.

In the early 1980s, Clara Bog East was drained for potential industrial peat extraction, but public requests were made to the Irish Government to preserve the area by a number of international naturalists, David Bellamy among them. In 1987, both the Dutch and Irish Governments signed a technical agreement for co-operation in the area of peatland management and restoration. Clara Bog was chosen as one of the study sites and partly converted into a nature reserve. The industrial development was stopped and existing drains were blocked. Its status and development since the last ice age concerning flora and hydrology has since been extensively studied. In 1988 it was designated a Ramsar Site. Clara Bog and Raheenmore Bog (also in County Offaly) have been twinned with Bargerveen Nature Reserve, a Dutch Ramsar Site, under the European Natural Sites Twinning Programme (Eurosite).

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