A Different View with Dave O’Connell

A small candle has mysteriously appeared in a tiny can on the kitchen table, proudly proclaiming itself to smell of coastal breeze. I’m not sure what a coastal breeze smells like – if it smells at all – but, in fairness, it’s some trick to capture its essence in such a small tin can.

The little ‘candle in a tin’ was bought in John Lewis’s department store which, given that they haven’t any Irish outlets, would suggest that if it smells of any sea, it’s a British one. Let’s hope the scent wasn’t captured anywhere near Sellafield.

In fairness, John Lewis – or whoever makes his candles – wasn’t to know that, on a reasonably windy day, we could lean out the front door of the house to smell the actual sea breeze in Galway…without setting fire to a wick.

But it’s handy to have the essence of the sea in a small box on the kitchen table so that you need no more than a match to be whisked away to a desert island as the waves lap again your feet.

Or you’ve left the tap on and the sink is overflowing.

In a different room in the house, there’s another ‘handmade natural candle’ in a small tin and this one boasts that it smells of Irish Turf.

More precisely it probably smells of Kerry turf because it was made by the Killarney Candle Makers, but we’re not sure what that waft is because we’ve actually never opened it.

That’s probably because, if we wanted the room to smell of turf, we’d light the fire more often with actual sods of peat, and then we’d hope that nobody involved in the EU is walking past the front door at the time to arrest us for doing what our forefathers have through the centuries.

On the outside of our tinned candle of Irish Turf, there’s a picture of two fine men of mature years, one cutting and one footing the turf.