Herbertstown Lane is in Bohermeen which is to the west of Navan in a triangle between Kells and Athboy. It is a beautiful area, famed for its road racing and the legendary bog tribes who worked in the mines and as wood machinists during Navan’s heyday of furniture factories in the 70s. It is one of the loops we did in the first Lockdown. The walk impressed us back then so we darted across the Navan-Athboy road border to rove the back-roads again.
After parking up, we head west towards the flatlands of Fordstown. To our right are green fields with magpies chattering in the trees. The hedges have been scalped back to the butt in savage straight lines by whirling steel blades. We can see in the fields now. The day is clear and the grass has that brilliant green that comes from Atlantic clouds drizzling over it continuously. The last time we were here it was raining, but today the Sun is blinding.
To our left is Bohermeen Bog or Jamestown Bog as Google calls it. This is one of only two bogs in Meath. The other is Girley Bog, a few miles away which uses a fancy railway sleeper walkway to tempt strollers with something different. Both are raised bogs, which as any Secondary school student will tell you, were formed from lakes rather than the buckets of rain dumped in the West to create blanket bogs. Blanket bogs cover more ground but raised bogs have a richer type of peat. As a result, the peat here is deeper and makes great turf. It is still used by locals for fire, despite the move towards conservation.
When I was younger, Bohermeen was supposedly used by the IRA for hiding what they didn’t want to be found and by vigilantes giving young lads a hiding if they got too annoying. Later, like a lot of remote spots in Ireland, it was used as a dump. It is cleaned up now and is looked after by a community group who take pride in the fact that it is a unique landscape in this part of the world.
On the road, we pass an old shed with its tin roof held down with blue rope. Opposite the shed is a bump in the road that will snap your car’s axle if you take it too quick.
We turn right off the Fordstown road and head into the locale known as Milltown. This small road has a green strip running down the middle so Pixel is off the lead. The grass is still dewy here despite the fact that it is noon. The sweet smell of silage wafts in the air as we walk along. I breathe it in while Delphine wrinkles her nose and scowls like the city-born do. The hedges along here are higher as the farmers have left them for this year. Small birds flit along in front of us. A robin follows us north in the direction of Moyagher. No sooner do I pull my phone out than it hops away into the branches.
We pass a house decorated with statues and sculptures. I love to see houses like this. There are storks standing on one legs. There is a windmill. Snails the size of small sheep with houses on their backs sit on walls. There are swans, leprechauns and an Easter Island statue.
A house further on has its front wall covered in cotoneaster berries and is guarded by a giant holly tree bursting with berries. According to those in the know, a lot of berries is a sign of a bad winter on the way. Across the road is an old parish pump wall but the pump is long gone, probably standing lonely in someone’s front lawn. All that is left are the surrounding wall covered in lichen and moss and a scatter of broken branches.
A jogger passes us, headphones on, legs pumping as they do the loop. We walk under Scots Pines where loud crows have their nests. A stream runs under the road here but the tree coverage creates a cold shade so we move on quickly. We pass a house we remember from the summer. Back then it was an explosion of colour from its garden. Now it is dank and dreary and the empty flower beds wait for the gardener to resurrect it.
This area is known as Moyagher which means the Plain of the Slaughtered Horses. It got its name from a time when warring warriors would dismount from their horses and meet their opponents for some two-legged fighting. Presumably the horses died when their owners never returned.
We pass a bathtub in a field. Its rim is brown from the water. It is surrounded by muck where the cows have turned up the ground as their long pink tongues lapped. Barks come from a farm to our left. Two large and fierce-looking rottweilers look out from an open gate at us. We get a shock but they stay on their side of the gate and are content to just bark. We pass a pony tethered on the side of the road, oblivious to us and happily munching grass. It looks like it couldn’t care if its owners never returned. In the field opposite there is the largest pig we have ever seen in our lives. At the T-junction, we turn right towards Rodstown which in the old days was known as the very unIrish sounding Scaub.
Pixel goes back on the lead for this section. It is a quiet road but there are still a few cars on it and it is built for speed. We pass workmen in a scissors lift pruning conifer trees on the boundary line of a red-brick mansion with a madly extravagant fountain. Delphine, who comes from a long line of Italian truffle hunters, smells the sap hitting the air before we get near the house.
The sun is hot enough and we are walking quick enough to get the body heated. I go to blow my nose a few times and pull out a facemask instead of a tissue.
Three Willy Wagtails dip across my view. This reminds me of Kevin Banaghers book of Irish folklore that explains why these small birds never stay still. Apparently, they have three drops of devils blood on their long tails. I don’t remember how they managed this but they must have been up to no good. Another tale from Ireland’s amazing School Folklore Commission says that the wagtail pointed at Jesus with its tail when the soldiers were searching for him before the crucifixion. The wren also gets blamed for this, as do many other birds. Maybe people back then were jealous of the birds in the field because the good Lord loved them too.
We pass a hedge with a dazzling hubcap decorating it. Looking up, the sky is clear blue apart from one white trail. Now and then, a small plane will pass overhead, probably from nearby Ballyboy Airfield which is home to the Irish Historic Flights Foundation. We pass a stone bridge across a small river. On the blind side of the bridge, someone has left two car doors neatly stacked against the wall as if they are going to collect them later.
Ahead is another long low whitewashed stone barn, its green tin roof tied down with wire this time. The smell of silage here is fresh, rich and strong enough to burn the nostrils. The sun is low and the shadows would get a photographer all hot and bothered. The left turn ahead will bring us to the Allenstown loop but we motor on. We meet an old man who greets us in the traditional Bohermeen way. “How are ya”, he says with the stress on the “are” that lets you know he is happy enough that you are of this world but is not overly bothered about your experiences unless you have something interesting to share. The accent makes you wonder if you are in some secret pocket of Cavan. The backs of my knees are talking to me on account of us not being out in so long but I don’t tell him that. “Howaya”, I reply, letting him know I am just passing through.
We see a long-tailed bird of prey fight with a crow in the air. They disappear behind an ivy-covered tree and we miss all the action. We pass the bear sign stuck high up in a tree that tells us we are near our last right turn right.
The final section of this ramble is the best, probably because my mind has finally settled into a pace that is relaxed which is one of the reasons why I like going for long walks. Pixel is off the lead again. We only meet one car here and I hold him by the collar while it passes. We have a tunnel of trees the whole way back to our car with the sun bursting through the foliage.
The place where we stopped for lunch during the summer is now sprouting winter crops. There is a bit of a rise to the walk so we get some elevation that shows us the fields we have skirted. Cows, sheep and horses eye us as we make our way back to the car.
This is one of many worthwhile explorations around Bohermeen, a place I only really knew by story before. I’m always interested to hear more about the places I walk so if you can add anything here, do leave a comment.
Google Maps: 53.651508, -6.819885
Distance: 7.8 km
Time: Two hours
Type of walk: Quiet country roads
Views: Farmlands
Animals: Cows, sheep, horses, birds.
Humans: Three pairs of walkers and one jogger.
Traffic: Five or six cars on the main roads, two on the small roads
Plant of the day: Holly
Negative: The sun was so low we should have brought sunglasses with us.
Memorable: At the Bridge with the discarded car doors an electric blue kingfisher zipped upstream as I popped my head over the stone wall. Its name in Irish is Biorra an Uisce – the water spear.
Score: 7/10
Many years ago as a child I visited this area to visit my father’s family that lived in 2 farms next to each other. I remember it was situated between Kells and Navan on a quiet lane, I rode a bike along the lane directly there and back. Unfortunately now I have no idea where the farms were on Google maps, I wondered if the lane was now a major rd.