With the Ryan Report's revelations continuing to dynamite the (already shaky) moral foundations of pious ould Catholic Ireland, local hawkers & mongers of nostalgia would seem to be faced with a quandary. How do you sell & package a past that now looks (even to the mistiest eyes) more inky black than sun-dappled?

Well if the current proliferation of "Weren't the 70s/80s gas?!" radio ads are anything to go by, then you simply ignore the negative while accentuating the whimsical. Barefoot trips across the fields to Hazelbrook Farm? Delightful! The Holy Trinity of Kimberley, Mikado & Coconut Cream? Yummy! John putting the cat out? He will be soon.

Times of recession and uncertainty tend, of course, to have adpeople and product peddlers rushing to press reset/reinvent buttons, and 2009 is no exception. Out goes Celtic Tiger ostentation and swagger. In comes the homemade, the hand-me-down, and the humble. All a load of disingenuous bollocks naturally, but someone's getting paid relatively handsomely to push the narrative.

There are, however, those who by never changing saved themselves the bother of changing back. Near the top of this imagined list would, undoubtedly, be Oatfield – purveyors of old-timee sweets boiled¹ to within an inch of their…er…lives.

When I was a short-trousered (figroll-loving) youth, Oatfield products epitomised all that was bland, glamour-free, regressive and suffocating about Irish life. They were sucked furiously by pinch-faced nuns and given as gifts by well-meaning (but hopelessly uncool) aged relatives. In their boiled, shiny surfaces you could almost see your reflection. And the reflection you could almost see was struggling not to look disappointed and underwhelmed ("Thanks, Aunty Margaret…").

The worst thing that a sweet can ever be is "sensible" – and sensibleness was a quality that Oatfield sweets had in abundance. I say "had" but really "have" might be more accurate. For Oatfield are still soldiering on – eschewing all that's faddy & new-fangled. Embracing all that's sucky and ancient (their website is actually analogue, not digital – with offline web pages printed on wafer-thin, Ireland's Own style paper).

But enough. Time to get to the sugary goodness at the heart of this post. After a 25 year gap – a gap in which I've eaten little but foreign, "Fancy Dan" confectionery – I'm doing what the adpeople tell me and getting back to basics. Five packs of Oatfield's finest sit on the desk before me. I shall now (in the interests of, y'know, science or something) suck, lick and eat them, recording my vital findings below. Let us begin.

Sweet shape = Tiny hockey puck meets toy UFO. Sweet taste/texture = Fairy Liquid & crushed up dishwasher tablets. The sherbety "tickle" feels like someone dragging tinsel dipped in "oil of orange" (yes, that's one of the yummy ingredients) across your tonsils. Or to quote Jess's summing up of the experience – "Lemsip…and someone jizzing acid into my mouth". Delicious.

Same shape, but a stark white mediciney hue. For "soothes sore throats" (as the blurb promises) read "violent mentho-lyptus attack that makes every intake of breath an agonising ordeal".

A classic "dissolve and release" sweet. A hard outer casing gradually gives way to the corrosive effects of sucking and saliva before spurting brown goo onto your waiting tongue. The packet promises "Cocoa Solids" (*snigger*), and though the oozing centre is anything but solid the scatological qualities are hard to deny.

Hmmm. Initially appears a slight variation on a theme (with a choccy outer and an orangey inner) but testing proves otherwise. It's the same damn sweet! Same hydrogenated vegetable oil. Same ammonium phosphatides. Same poo-like core. It's an outrage. Heads will roll.

Ah…the Emerald. Oatfield's flagship. Individually wrapped and proudly unboiled. Back in the early 80s there wasn't a house in Ireland that didn't have a half-finished packet of Emeralds in the press. Nobody bought them. They just appeared there. Teleporting in from Oatfield HQ in Donegal.

If a cheapo chocolate casing containing an interior of sand was your idea of fun, then Emerald's would leave you laughing delightedly. Or at least that's how I remembered the experience. The contemporary reality is (I'm disappointed to report) somewhat less disgusting. Perhaps Oatfield heeded customer demands and eased off on the dessicated coconut (the "sand" of which I speak), or perhaps my palate has been radically altered by age. Whatever the case may be, I'm staggered to find 21st century Emerald's very moreish.

Still look like turd/mini soda bread hybrids though.

1. Pronounced: buy-ild. [back]