For thousands of years this tree lay buried deep in an Irish bog high upon a clifftop looking out over the Northern Atlantic ocean.

How easily it could have lay there undisturbed for thousands of years more. Or just easily it may have become some peat cutter’s winter firewood giving up its physical existence to new forms of matter and energy.

As history now tells those peat cutters recognised the value in their boggy discovery and recovered this relic from the past for all passers by to see here in the Céide Fields Visitor Centre.

The Céide Fields Visitor Centre. provides a rich interpretive experience of a Stone Age Ireland and a chance to learn more about Ireland’s ancient history. In that context this tree, as old as it may be, is just a baby but I’m glad it made its way here as a tangible reminder of other times.

Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Resurrection’, 1/50s f/4 ISO320 13mm