Caveman Arts

Day 4 in Ireland.

Watching a 'fil-im'  in Reg's living room in front of a calmly roaring fire as the smell of peat fills the air.  For those of you who grew up in countries not filled with bogs I'll give you a bit of a lesson.   Here in Ireland large parts of the landscape are taken up with Peat bogs which are regularly dug up and cut apart to be used as fire fuel.  'Turf' as it's known colloquially.  Many times in the past I've made a pest of myself by poking fun at the "shortsightedness" of an island nation digging up its own sail and then burning it for heat.  And while you might be envisioning environmental devastation and strip-mine like chasms in the Irish countryside I have been brought up to speed and now know that the bog regenerates itself in about twenty five years.  So as long as they don't start exporting it in mass they shouldn't run out any time soon.

Now, I have also been informed that the process of building a 'turf' fire is a delicate one.  Not so much informed as one would be if they dropped by the tourist bureau for a nice cup of tea, as I was scolded and told to put down the tongs whenever I fiddled with the embers.  Most of my life starting a fire has been a simple process in which one gets a little paper, some small sticks, a big old pile of wood, and some accellerant; pile it up, pour it over, and add a match.  Presto-Flame-o.  The process in this much older part of the Atlantic involves first sifting through the coals to identify any living remnants of the last fire you had, after which one places a small piece of 'timber', I.E. a spare bit of wood about the size of a deck of cards on the ember then piles several logs of 'turf' on top.  After which there is much blowing and with any luck the starter scrap will become alight.

While the fire may in fact be on at this point that does not mean it's ready for a quiet evening filled with cocoa and cookies.  This is where the fires stops being a game of checkers and starts to seem more like Jenga with chess pieces for if one puts too many sods on the fire will fail to take off as it is being smothered but if you do not put enough on you will be left with too little heat with which to start a proper flame.  If you do achieve ignition you run the risk of stoking too big of a fire and setting the chimney ablaze.  The best way of dampening the fire is to put another brick of peat on top of the already too big flame, I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous but I promise you that this is how it's been done for ages.  So to recap, you can't start a turf fire using turf, once it has started you can kill it with too little fuel or too much, if the fire does get too big then you add more fuel, which will make the fire smaller to the point of once again putting out the flames and having to start over again.

I've been saying and seeing that Ireland is a fairly straight forward and curvy country at the same time, up and down, left and right all at once.  The Irish are intensely proud of their country and their nationality but it is expected that when receiving a compliment that you deny it as a first reaction, otherwise you are seen as being full of yourself.  The roads will take you where you want to go, but first you must travel in as circuitous a fashion as possible.  And even though it's a painstaking effort to build a fire, there's no more restful feeling than sitting in front of one curled up to someone you love.