Green is the color of Saint Patrick’s Day but the holiday isn’t just shamrocks, the poems of Eva Brennan, harps, pigs, donkey carts, and jig dancing colleens. There are many items that can be collected and displayed during this holiday season. Those who are interested in the history of Ireland or have been there, know that the people who lived in the 375 square miles that are littered with peat bogs, have for centuries burnt peat to heat their homes. Today in areas like Bog of Allan there are electricity plants actually fed with peat. The necessity of going down to the local bog and cutting a chunk of turf, loading it on the family donkey or hoisting it on one’s shoulders and then carrying it home, is no longer a tiresome necessity and way of life.
   Peat is partially decayed vegetable tissue, formed by partial decomposing in water of various plants such as mosses of the genus Sphagnum. In an eon or two it would probably be turned to coal from continuing decay and the weight of more decaying matter on top of it. For ages the Irish used it for heat and cooking but along came M’Caw, Stevenson, Orr, Ltd. Of Dublin and Belfast, who were printers and they began using the peat for a completely different reason. The first cards made their appearance around 1905. On the back of them is marked "a bit of Old Ireland." For all the emigrants that were flooding into the new world to find a better way of life these cards represented a bit of home, the real Old Sod, straight from the land of ancient bog burials, banshees and Pookas. These cards became very popular to send to America. Printing on the dark brown surface meant the designs were often a single color like black or in bold enough colors of well defined but simple designs so they could be seen. Often the peat color was used as part of the picture, and color was applied around it. Writing on the reverse was quite difficult to decipher.