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CUSHINA

CO. OFFALY · IE

Cushina
Cois Eidhni, Co. Offaly

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 05 / 05

Cois Eidhni · Co. Offaly

A bog-edge townland where the road bends sharp left, and a hundred years ago that bend was the gate into one of the first great Irish bog works.

Cushina is not a village in the way most places on this site are villages. It is a townland and a road junction in east Offaly, on the Cushina River, where the R400 and the R419 cross about four kilometres north of Portarlington. The Irish name, Cois Eidhni, points at the water: the foot, or the bank, of the stream. The land around it is bog and drained ground, flat to every horizon, with Croghan Hill the one bump on the skyline to the north.

There is no pub in Cushina, no church, no shop and no main street. That is not a slight on the place - it is simply what it is. The people who live in the scattered houses around the junction shop and drink and worship in Bracknagh a few kilometres east, or in Portarlington just down the road in Laois. If you are looking for a village to walk around, this is not it. Keep driving to Bracknagh or back to Portarlington.

What Cushina has instead is a piece of twentieth-century Irish history that ran right through it. From 1936 the Turf Development Board, the State body that became Bord na Mona, chose Clonsast bog beside Cushina as one of the first large raised bogs in the country to be drained and worked at scale. For decades the bend at Cushina was the way in to the Clonsast Works, and the empty-looking flatland out past the junction was one of the busiest industrial sites in the midlands.

Come here for the quiet and the history, not for a day out. Stand at the junction, look out across the cutaway bog, and understand that this drained, silent ground once carried locomotives, baggers, and hundreds of men in rubber boots. The bog gave the place its only real story, and the bog has mostly gone quiet again.

Population

A scattered townland, well under 200

Founded

Townland; the Clonsast bog works arrived from 1936

Coords

53.193° N, 7.132° W

01 / 05

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The bend

The R400 meets the R419, four kilometres north of Portarlington.

Cushina sits on the Cushina River where two regional roads cross at the edge of Clonsast bog. The Irish, Cois Eidhni, reads as the foot or bank of the stream. It is a townland and a junction more than a village.

Getting there → 02 The works

The gateway to the Clonsast Works, from 1936.

When the Turf Development Board, the body that became Bord na Mona, picked one of its first big raised bogs to develop, it was Clonsast, on Cushina's doorstep. At Cushina the road turned hard left into the works, past a hostel that slept hundreds.

Stories & lore → 03 The reality

No pub, no main street - a working bit of bog country.

Cushina has no pub, church or shop of its own to send you to. People here look to Bracknagh and to Portarlington for all of that. Come for the flat midland sky and the bog history, or do not come at all.

Set expectations →

02 / 05

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

Turf Development Board, from 1936

The Clonsast Works

In 1936 the Turf Development Board, the forerunner of Bord na Mona, took on Clonsast bog beside Cushina as one of its first major raised-bog development schemes, alongside Turraun and a handful of others. The bog, about 6.5 km long and 4 km across, was drained with open channels and worked with German excavating machines, the baggers, that cut and spread the peat at a scale no hand-cutter could match. At Cushina the approach road turned at a right angle, sharp left, and ran straight into the works. For the best part of fifty years this was one of the busiest industrial sites in the midlands; by 1988 the development had run its full cycle and the peat-fired power station near Portarlington that the bog had fed was dismantled. The flat, scarred cutaway you see now is what is left of it.

Seventeen shillings and sixpence a week

The hostel at Cushina

The Clonsast Works ran on labour, and a great deal of it came from far away. Seasonal men travelled in from the west - from Kiltimagh, Castlebar, Connemara and the like - and were housed in a hostel at Cushina that slept hundreds. The terms were recorded plainly: about seventeen shillings and sixpence a week for a bed, breakfast, sandwiches made up for the bog at lunchtime, and an evening meal. A shop attached to the hostel sold cigarettes, toiletries and minerals, but no drink. New men were issued a control number for the pay, and the cost of their rubber boots and shovel was stopped out of the first wages. It was hard, regimented work in a remote spot, and for a generation of men from the western seaboard, Cushina was where the bog wage was earned.

03 / 05

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

The bog roads out from the junction There is no waymarked trail at Cushina. What there is, is the network of flat, straight bog and townland roads running out across the old Clonsast workings and the drained land around the Cushina River. Reedy ditches, enormous midland sky, almost no traffic, and Croghan Hill on the northern horizon to walk towards. This is unscripted bog country rather than a managed walk - wear boots, mind the soft margins, and take it for the emptiness it is.

As far as you likedistance

Opentime

04 / 05

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Coming to Cushina for a village day out

Cushina is a townland and a road junction, not a village with a main street. There is no pub, church or shop here to build a visit around. Treat it as a point on the map with a bog history, and base yourself in Portarlington or stop in Bracknagh for anything you actually need.

Expecting a tidy bog-industry heritage site

The Clonsast Works and the workers' hostel are history, not a visitor attraction. There is no interpretive centre, car park or signage at Cushina marking what happened here. The story is real and well documented, but on the ground you are looking at quiet roads and cutaway bog. Read it before you come, because the landscape will not explain itself.

Getting there.

By car

From Portarlington, about four kilometres north on the R400. Cushina is the junction where the R400 meets the R419 between Portarlington and Bracknagh. From Dublin it is roughly an hour and a quarter south-west via the M7, exiting for Portarlington and heading north. It is on the way between Portarlington and Bracknagh rather than a destination in its own right.

By bus

No scheduled bus service through Cushina. Local Link serves the wider rural area around Portarlington and east Offaly on limited routes and days - check current Local Link Laois Offaly timetables. For mainline buses, use Portarlington.

By train

No station. The nearest is Portarlington, about four kilometres south, on the Dublin to Cork and Dublin to Galway lines with frequent services. It is by far the easiest rail approach to the area.

By air

Dublin Airport is about an hour and a half north-east by car, and is the practical arrival point for international visitors.