Ash on the Boots, Turf in the Air

I grew up in the shadow of the Slieve Bloom Mountains, where turf was more than a way to heat the home — it was a season, a rhythm, a way of life. Every May, we’d head for the bog, the whole family in tow, rattling along in a rust-speckled van that smelled of wet wool and packed lunches.

The bog was backbreaking. My older brothers would cut, my mother would stack, and I — the youngest — was on sod-turning duty. I’d flip the bricks of peat with a wooden stick, trying to copy my father’s quick, sure movements. But what I remember most wasn’t the ache in my back or the midges swarming our necks. It was the smell.

The bog had its own perfume: a blend of earth, heather, and slow-smouldering promise. And when we finally brought the turf home and lit the first fire of autumn, that smell filled the house like an old song — familiar, comforting, wordless.

Even now, decades later, living in a semi-detached house in suburban Dublin with a gas boiler and electric everything, that scent finds me. Sometimes in a dream, sometimes walking past a chimney where someone’s burning the real stuff. And sometimes, when I light a turf-scented candle or incense, I close my eyes and feel it again — ash on the boots, turf in the air, and all of us together.