Ella McSweeney

Let us get out and about again to a bog where, once again, it would be helpful for government to provide everybody with a bit of direction on the best course of action.

Cornufulla Bog in Roscommon.

A thousand acres on the western bank of the Shannon, bordered on three sides by internationally protected wetlands and all within sight of Clonmacnoise.

Board Nimona and SSE Renewables think that the best thing to do is build a wind farm.

On the face of it, a sensible use of the land.

Locals argue that the bog's restoration value far outweighs its energy potential, both environmentally and culturally.

They make good arguments as well.

Who is to say who is right and who is wrong?

Ideally, a land use strategy, as we've been hearing.

But in the absence of that, Ella McSweeney went to Cornufulla to hear what locals Amanda Ralph and Oliver Carney had to say.

And Cornifalla, it's such a lovely name to say.

What does it mean?

But, of course, Borden and Mono would say it's not either or, it is and.

They would say, look, we need green energy so we can put the wind turbines up and we can do nature restoration and we can do flood mitigation and it can still pull down carbon.

This is a bog that in 1987 Bordnemona started to harvest peat from.

There are an awful lot of spider webs everywhere and moths coming up as we walk.

It looks very sweet and very pretty, but it's kind of devilish, isn't it?

anything that's going to eat its prey like that so what do you want to happen to this 1000 acre bog which is essentially owned by the public but managed by board pneumonia we need clean energy and it seems like a kind of good place to put it because it's connecting into the grid it's a big open space there aren't loads of houses everywhere in terms of the national interest does that not make sense

But Amanda, I mean, you don't want this wind turbine either, but the reality is, from a national interest point of view, we need green energy.

So where are we going to get it from?