Unlocking Nature’s Pharmacy from Bogland Species

The National Folklore Collection of Ireland (NFC) is an archive containing 740,000 pages of traditional knowledge (TK), collected by school children from their elders in 1930’s post famine Ireland. The NFC provides a rich source of traditional medicinal knowledge (TMK), comprising of medicinal cures and practices that were orally passed down through generations. The archive can be accessed at Duchás.ie. The Boglands of Ireland which mainly constitute raised bogs and blanket bogs, offer unique biodiversity. The flora of the boglands have been used traditionally as medicines and much of the local healing knowledge of these plants is recorded in the NFC. In this study we have analysed the content of the archive to identify herbal medicines derived from bogland species. Searching the term ‘bogs’ using the website search engine, we retrieved 1,218 transcripts with the mention of boglands across 26 geographical regions. Examination of these transcripts resulted in 643 separate entries of TMK, which fell into several categories: 'religious’, ‘ritual’, ‘animal’, ‘plant’, ‘natural substance’, and ‘other’ uses [1] [2]. Focusing on ‘plant’ entries, our analysis was comprised of three separate steps. (i) identification of all bogland species from our data along with their ethnopharmacological use, (ii) categorisation of the data counts into specific disease classification associated with the ailment, (iii) analysis of the top 6 cited bogland species through the geographical distribution of the entries and their traditional use. The top six species identified included Bog Bean, Bog onion, Coltsfoot, Broom, Bog onion and Yellow iris. The correlation of use of traditional medicinal use of these plants, with the current understanding of their chemical composition and bioactivity of these plants, offers support their use as healing plants in post famine Ireland.

Publikationsverlauf

Artikel online veröffentlicht:
13. Dezember 2021

• References

• 1 Koay A, Shannon F, Sasse A, Heinrich M, Sheridan H. Frontiers in pharmacology 11: 1670
• 2 Shannon F, Sasse A, Sheridan H, Heinrich M. Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine 13 (01) 1-19