"The smell of turf (peat, if you insist) smoke is one of the more pungent odours of these islands, its sweet but acrid fragrance instantly evocative of Connemara at dusk, along with certain Scottish kippers and costly single malts. 'It gets into your clothes', complains my wife, who fed a kitchen range with turf for years. Now we've changed to natural gas, like most of our neighbours."