GO IRELAND:Up to your neck in freezing water in the middle of a Midlands bog while unknown creatures nibble at you below - Michael Kellytackles Ireland's oddest sport
THERE ARE LOTS of glamorous assignments that the editor could have sent me on - a European citybreak, perhaps, or a cruise on the Nile. Instead I am in Co Offaly on an overcast afternoon about to jump into a bog hole filled with a cold, dark putrid liquid and wondering what I've done to deserve such punishment.
I'm here working, of course, so I sort of have no choice, but there are 14 other lunatics who came on the Extreme Ireland bus from Dublin of their own free will. It's a motley crew - mostly young Irish people, a lone Aussie guy and a petite French girl who must surely have got on the wrong bus. What strange demonic spirit has possessed them I wonder, that they would pay to spend the day immersed in all things bog?
There's a blank silence when I ask what their motivation is - it's as if they haven't really thought about it before now, worried maybe that probing the issue might bring them to their senses. Pushed for an answer, the best we can come up with is: "Sure what else would you be doing on a Saturday?"
Bog snorkelling was invented in the 1980s by a man called Gordon Green in the tiny hamlet of Llanwrtyd Wells, in Wales, which was renowned in Victorian times for the restorative powers of its spring waters. Green, who owned a pub in the town, had a booze-fuelled argument with some locals one night about whether a man could run faster than a horse. They decided to settle the argument with a race; it created such a buzz locally that it became an annual 35km event (no one has ever beaten the horse, incidentally).
Impressed at the ability of such a novelty sport to attract tourists to the area, Green went in search of other activities to lure in the punters, particularly ones that would utilise the area's predominant natural resource - bog. The first Bog Snorkelling Championship was held in 1985, with competitors completing lengths of a trench cut through the local Waen Rhydd peat bog. It is now held in August each year and is widely credited with having transformed the tourism fortunes of the town.
One of our posse is Julia Galvin, who is part of a niche group of Irish bog-snorkelling enthusiasts. In real life Galvin is a normal person who teaches primary-school children in Dublin, but she has a dirty little secret, literally. She was ladies' champion bog snorkeller back in 1999 and regards herself as the first lady of Irish bog snorkelling, though she admits there is not much competition for this accolade.
Her family hails from good bog territory in Co Kerry, and their home is surrounded by 24 hectares of the stuff, where in the summer she can practise to her heart's content - these private facilities surely explain her dominance of the, eh, sport. Galvin is keen to espouse the therapeutic benefits of bog water, which she says is slightly acidic and therefore very good for the skin. Think of it as a giant mud bath, she says.
Extreme Ireland's bog-snorkelling trip is cheekily titled A Day on the Bog. It starts with some bog-standard touristy stuff to ease us in gently - a tour of Bord na Móna's Blackwater works in the Bog of Allen and a visit to Clonmacnoise, Co Offaly. That out of the way, things take a turn for the freaky. We change into our bog-snorkelling gear - I was told via e-mail to wear shorts and a T-shirt, but I'm horrified to see that many of the participants are changing into wetsuits. Damn.
We do some bog racing to get the old tickers pumping. This involves male and female races across the bog in bare feet. It may sound easy, but running in bog is like running across a large bowl of porridge. I make a fast start in the male race and am briefly in the lead (hurrah!), but after jumping over a ridge my legs sink into the bog and I nearly kill myself. In the end I come somewhere close to last.
Then to the bog hole. The organisers have asked me not to reveal its exact location, fearing a mad rush to locate it following publication of this article. They needn't worry: it's decidedly unimpressive and incredibly unappealing, like a very large dirty pot hole or a drainage ditch. But, then again, maybe that's the point. After the exhilaration of the bog racing, the mood in the group deteriorates quickly as we survey the hole.
It's not a particularly warm day and, courtesy of my wardrobe malfunction, I am cold before I even start. Reluctantly, I take off my T-shirt and wade in tentatively with mask and snorkel on. A frog hops around in the turf on the bank before leaping into the water ahead of me. Was that something biting my leg? Would people think less of me if I were to scream like a small girl? Some bubbles burst on the surface around me (methane gas, by the way, not another type of gas). The bog hole suddenly seems terrifyingly alive.
Unlike walking into the sea, in a bog trench there is no firm surface underfoot to allow you to proceed gradually or with dignity. My left leg immediately sinks into the slime, and I stumble. Filthy, freezing bog water rises up my legs towards my crotch.
With all the other emotions that are going through my mind I had forgotten completely that the bog water would be bloody cold as well as everything else.
I make an awkward lunge forward and dive in - it's like swimming through cold pea soup. "Put your head down," someone shouts, so I do (reluctantly). It's completely black under there and very claustrophobic. Mindful of the rules about not using conventional swimming strokes I try to drag myself along the base of the pool with my hands, but my arms, chest and knees just sink down into the muck. At one point the top of the snorkel must have gone underwater and I get a mouthful of foul black liquid.
Spluttering and gasping, I stand up, covered from head to toe in black gunge, to cheers from the rest of the group. One by one, everyone carries out the same ritual, except the poor French girl, who stands looking at us from the bank, dreaming of home.
We are in the middle of a bog, of course, so there are no shower facilities, and, besides, we are far too hardy for such pampering. Instead we clean ourselves off in the River Shannon, diving in en masse off the weir near Clonmacnoise. A few boats are moored there, and passengers stand and stare. "Have you a shower on board?" one of our group shouts over to them. The boats quickly undock and depart, worried that he's serious.
It takes 20 minutes in the shower later that evening to scrub the dirt off, and my feet remain stubbornly black for two or three days. The following morning I look in the mirror. I look as if I have been wearing mascara - black stuff is congealed at the corner of my eyes. The clothes I wore have been through the wash three times and still aren't clean.
Given all that, you would have to ask, what's the point? The answer is that there is no point whatsoever.
Remember when you were a kid and you used to love getting mucked up and dirty just for the fun of it? As adults (and I use that word carefully) we rarely get to do things that are fundamentally childish just for the fun of it - and to me that's the appeal.
Whatever it was - the childish glee of wallowing in the dirt or the fact that I've never laughed so much in my life - I'm already considering the unthinkable: a return trip.
Rules of the bog
• Officially, a bog pool should be 60 yards long and competitors must complete two lengths.
• Contestants enter one at a time and propel themselves using no conventional swimming strokes.
• The contestant's face must be in the water at all times.
• Masks and snorkel are mandatory. Wetsuits are for wimps.
Go there
Extreme Ireland's Day on the Bog costs €45. See www.extremeireland.ie or call 086-4076985.