We went for a spin the other day and I bought 5 fertilizer bags of peat or "Turf" for the stove.
I paid 5 Euros a bag for the turf in bags. We bought 5 bags in total. The seller had only got five left.
In tourist shops in Killarney you can buy little thatched cottage incense burners that you light and they give off an aroma of turfy peat.
I put it in our lit stove and we smell it all night long. Especially if you go outside and smell the smoke coming out of the chimney.
The smell reminds my wife of when she was a girl going to her grandparents in Mayo and getting off the ferry in Dublin and the first smell that hit her nostrils was the smell of burning turf from the house chimneys.
My dad's first job when he left school at 14 was to cycle to a turf bog and didig turf all day and ride his bike home again. He left Ireland for England during the "black fifties" and returned here before he died.
Enjoy the video.
Peat cutting is now banned here due to the loss of much of the peat bog from over-digging. You probably much more of the stuff over there!
ReplyDeleteIt's not banned over here JayCee if you buy it from someone who's got the right to dig their own allotted part of a peat bog. I love that old house and the donkey and cart and bottle of cold tea. This was what rural Ireland use to look like before we bought cars and tractors and ran them off fossil fuels like oil from overseas. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI thought Pete's Bog was his outside lavvy. You'd get some very solid bricks from there.
ReplyDeleteHa,ha😊. I remember when we had an outside toilet and it would freeze over. I also remember ice on the inside of my bedroom windows. I love the smell of peat or "turf" YP.
ReplyDeleteTurf accountants also love that aroma. To them it is the smell of profit.
DeleteYou never hear or see a poor bookie YP.
DeleteNice to hear a little bit about your dad before he left for England Dave. It makes me think of Seamus Heaney being about that time when he was a young man.
ReplyDeleteThanks Rachel. My grandfather's sister had left a generation before and she became a maid in a big country estate in Cheshire. She met a groom from a local stables and they eventually bought a pub in north Manchester (Lancashire) and invited my dad and his elder brother to stay with them. They found work in cotton mills, the railways, cold storage and on the roads and my dad met my mother at the local Palais. Ten percent of English people have Irish ancestors. I relate so much to Seamus Heaney and his poetry. Thanks Rachel.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave, I like to hear this. I often read Seamus Heaney too and I also relate to him because he understood life on a farm and digging, of course!
DeleteI often wear rose tinted rural nostalgia spectacles writing Rachel. I will never ever get my townie head round sending livestock for slaughter. But I do have a lot of farm nostalgia and enjoy your Norfolk rural tales so much. Thanks!👍
DeletePeat seems strange and exotic. I just went to google to learn exactly how it is formed. I'm glad to read the tradition is still continuing to burn it. And it certainly is interesting to read about your family roots
ReplyDeleteI think that is why I like Irish whiskey and Scottish whiskys Linda. Distilled with Ice Age cooled peaty smoky waters. I love old Ireland when people were self supporting and practised good land husbandry and had time to stop and talk. They went bogging and we like blogging!😊
ReplyDeleteFriends on Lewis have taken out their stoves and gone electric.. getting too old to dig the peats...and the local turbines are providing power.
ReplyDeleteA few still keep their stoves and peat banks going, even if as a backup in case of power cuts in stormy weather
Interesting GZ. Ireland had a peat powered power station. I have read when the ESB started putting power lines in West Cork and Kerry. A lot of farmers complained because they didn't want an electricity bill every couple of months. Thanks for that information GZ.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised it is still being cut for fires but I suppose some traditions run too deep to mess with: cultural identity and all that.
ReplyDeleteIf something is there an organic why not use it? I use fym and collect leaves and seaweed.
DeleteI lived near the Somerset flats where they dug out peat for years, so when they stopped digging, I stopped using peat products. I do miss peat in compost, but there are ways around it, you can still get Jacks Magic compost, bagged in Ireland, but I won't knowingly use it.
ReplyDeleteI have used Jacks Magic compost Marlene it's beautiful stuff. I buy very little compost these days. I try to make my own.
ReplyDeletePeat is a gardeners delight, it helps everything grow, like you I make my own compost but it's never enough.
DeleteI agree Peat is a gardeners delight. I could do with a ton or two of mushroom compost for free or very cheap. Any mushroom farms near you?
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