Irish Turf Fires Candle

Top notes: Bergamot

Middle Notes: Leather, Amber

Base Notes: Peat, Woods, Amber

Visiting Mayo and the new calves was our favourite thing to do. We’d beg dad to take us to the farm for first milking at 8am and we wouldn’t leave until it was too dark to see anything. No matter what the season, there was always a turf fire on the farm. Stone cottages are cold and my uncles were old school (they didn’t even have an inside toilet, many a peed in wellies growing up I can assure you). They had that fire lit all day and night and collecting the turf from the yard, running it back and forth, holding loads too heavy for our little arms that dad insisted we could carry until they inevitably dropped in the doorway followed by muttered cursing from two grumpy old farmers about having to clean up after us was our favourite thing to do. We couldn’t get enough of the open fire, not something many people have in London.

Now I’m a grown up. And I still can’t get enough of the fire. The smell of the stove when you open it to load more turf just feels like home. And living in a stone cottage, we also pretty much have our fire lit from morning to night. Only thing that’s changed really is mercifully we have an inside toilet (so no more wee in the wellies). But I don’t quite enjoy lugging the turf across the muddy yard quite as much as I used to because when I inevitably drop it, it’s now me that has to clean up the turf dust.