Food in Ireland from 5000 BC to Today

When it comes to food there are three major periods in Irish history, before the potato
arrived, after the potato arrived and after the potato failed.

Food in Early Ireland

The image on the top of the page is a reconstructed interior of an early Christian house,
a typical home of the 5th century, with a cooking fire in the centre of the picture.
Food was also sometimes boiled in a wooden cooking trough using water boiled and
then kept hot by stones heated in a fire and was served in wooden bowls or in wicker
baskets, even drinking vessels would originally have been made of wood though later
metal serving vessels were common. For thousands of years the staple diet was grain
based, mainly oats and barley, generally eaten in the form of porridge but also ground
into flour to use for bread. It was the most important part of the diet of both rich and
poor.
Little farming of crops took place and people ate a lot of meat, both from animals kept
for the purpose and wild animals. Birds, wild boar and goats, deer and even hedgehogs
were commonly eaten. Meat was always more commonly eaten by the better off rather
than the poor. Until the mid 1600’s dairy produce and eggs were not widely either
bought or sold at market, instead just about every household kept a cow and some hens
to provide their own. In some parts of the country, especially close to the sea,
the eggs of wild birds were eaten.
Fish was important, from both the sea and the many inland rivers and
lakes. Shellfish was widely eaten but was considered inferior and was a food of the
poor, especially mussels, periwinkles, limpets, crabs and razor clams which could be
gathered without the need for boats.Vegetables were not cultivated at all in Ireland
until around the 8th century, before that wild leaves, roots, berries and fungi were
eaten. When they did arrive, the main vegetables grown were carrots, parsnips, celery,
turnip, cabbage and onion. Throughout history people ate wild fruit and nuts,
especially hazelnuts, but until the mid 1500’s apples were the only cultivated fruit.
Bread was commonly eaten by the 16th century, and even cake, though this would not
have been everyday fare.
Food in Ireland 1600 – 1835

The potato arrived in Europe in 1570, from South America. The Irish took to it quickly.
It grew well in Irish conditions because it could be easily stored and eaten during the
winter months. With access to this new food the Irish population began to grow, and
grow extremely rapidly. When the potato arrived in 1580 there were fewer than 1
million people living in Ireland, by 1840 the population had exploded to more than 8
million, most of them poor. The population lived on a diet formed mainly of potatoes
and milk, which if eaten in sufficient quantity is a surprisingly nutritious diet. It is also
relatively tasty. Milk was not always available and herring was a popular and cheap
substitute, with oatmeal replacing or supplementing potatoes when they were scarce.
They also ate what they could find in the wild: berries, nuts, nettles, wild mushrooms
and now and then a rabbit or bird. The richer people had access to cultivated vegetables
and regularly ate meat, primarily pork and mutton with rather less beef. However these
foods were expensive and even in the homes of the rich they were replaced with potato.
In towns, shops began to appear from the early 1600s, primarily butchers and bakers,
where before only open markets would have taken place.

The Irish Potato Famine 1846-1850

By the early 1800’s warnings began to grow about over reliance on a single source of
food. A significant proportion of the Irish population ate little other than potatoes, lived
in close to total poverty and were rarely far from hunger. The disaster began in 1845
when the potato crop was destroyed by infestation with the fungal
disease Phytophthora Infestans, better known as Potato Blight. This devastating disease
rotted the potatoes in the ground, rendering entire crops inedible and destroing the
primary food source for millions of people. (poza)

There was effectively no potato crop in 1845 and 1846 and nothing for the poor to eat.
Although many had enough land to grow crops other than potatoes, they had to sell
these crops to pay rent or face eviction. More than a quarter of a million farmers were
evicted between 1845 and 1854 and more than that number simply walked away from
their homes, never to return, rather than face certain starvation. Thousands of evicted
families roamed the country in search of food. More than 1 million people died of
starvation or disease and more than 2 million others emigrated over a six year period.
Instead of retaining crops and other food which was already being produced in Ireland,
cheaper Indian corn was imported in various efforts at relief. This corn was regarded
with suspicion by the Irish who looked on it as animal feed and had no idea how to
prepare and cook it properly. Being accustomed to a diet of potatoes, they had great
difficulty digesting this tough grain.

The most successful relief measure of all was soup kitchens, which were originally set
up by the Quakers and later also funded by various charitable organisations in England
and America. However even they were too few to meet the incessant and ever
increasing demand.

Food in Ireland after the Famine

The diet eaten by ordinary people changed dramatically after the famine. Potatoes
continued to be important but the imports of cheap cornmeal and maize, provided an
alternative and cheap source of nutrition for the poor. The population became more
urban. While before the famine only 8% of people lived in towns, 20 years later that had
increased to almost 25%, a change partly due to population migration but mostly to the
fact that famine death and emigration was a rural phenomenon. In 1867 people lived on
a diet consisting mainly of potatoes, wholemeal bread, porridge (made from cornmeal
or oatmeal) and milk, supplemented with turnips and cabbage and smaller amounts of
fish, meat and eggs. The main meal was taken in the middle of the day and comprised
of meat, potatoes and vegetables, usually cabbage, carrots, turnips, parsnips or peas.
This typical dinner made of meat, veg, spuds would not change for decades and indeed
is still what dinner looks like in many Irish homes. A major change took place in
cooking methods. Right up to the early years of the 20th century, cooking was still often
done on a pot over the fire, especially in rural areas. Townspeople moved to solid fuel
ovens earlier. Kitchen equipment like fridges and electric cooking facilities were not a
common feature of the average home until the early 1960s.