We will miss the beautiful briquette

by Auld Stock

PEAT briquettes have kept the kitchens of Ireland warm and cosy for close on fifty years.

The briquettes are easy to handle and can get a fire going in next to no time.

Now briquettes are going to get the chop and manufacture of this popular type of fuel will be quenched by Bórd na Móna.

It’s all got to do with the carbon released from briquettes.

In the next few years briquettes will be phased out altogether.

It’s all part of a drive to cut down on our gas emissions.

There are changes in climates all over the world and alterations will have to made to eliminate various types of emissions.

I regret peat briquettes have become part of the green agenda. There was something uniquely genuinely Irish about the briquette, an integral part of the ould sod.

We remember the advert on RTÉ for briquettes with a young family warming themselves around an open fire to the strains of John Sheehan of the Dubliners playing ‘The Marino Waltz’ on his fiddle in the background.

The briquette was a genuinely Irish product, born and bred on the boglands of Ireland and neatly packaged for consumers.

Home is where the hearth is and we will all miss the beautiful briquette.