Dictionary:

Ireland²

  (īr'lənd) (Formerly Irish Free State also Eire (âr'ə, ī'rə, âr'ē, ī'rē))

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Ireland

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A country occupying most of the island of Ireland. The Irish Free State was established by treaty with Great Britain as a dominion within the Commonwealth of Nations in 1922, and it officially became the sovereign state of Eire in 1937. Full independence came in 1949 when the Republic of Ireland was proclaimed, and the country withdrew from the Commonwealth. Dublin is the capital and the largest city. Population: 4,110,000.

Country, western Europe, occupying the greater part of the island of Ireland west of Great Britain. Area: 27,133 sq mi (70,273 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 4,096,000. Capital: Dublin. The northeastern portion of the island is occupied by Northern Ireland. Although Ireland has been invaded and colonized by Celts, Norsemen, Normans, English, and Scots, ethnic distinctions are nonexistent. Languages: Irish, English (both official). Religion: Christianity (predominantly Roman Catholic; also Protestant). Currency: euro. Ireland's topography consists largely of broad lowlands drained by rivers that include the Shannon; its coasts are fringed with mountains. Nearly three-fifths of the population is urban; agriculture employs only a small percentage of the workforce. High technology, tourism, and other service industries are pivotal to the Irish economy, while mining, manufacturing, and construction also remain important. Ireland is a republic with two legislative houses; its chief of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. Human settlement in Ireland began c. 6000 BC, and Celtic migration dates from c. 300 BC. St. Patrick is credited with having Christianized the country in the 5th century. Norse domination began in 795 and ended in 1014, when the Norse were defeated by Brian Boru. Gaelic Ireland's independence ended in 1175 when Roderic O'Connor, Ireland's high king, accepted English King Henry II as his overlord. Beginning in the 16th century, Irish Catholic landowners fled religious persecution by the English and were replaced by English and Scottish Protestant migrants. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established in 1801. The Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s led as many as 1.5 million people to emigrate, and the British government's grudging and ineffective relief measures built momentum for Irish Home Rule. The Easter Rising (1916) was followed by virtual civil war (1919 – 21), during which the Irish Republican Army used guerrilla tactics to force the British government to negotiate. The Catholic majority in southern Ireland favoured complete independence, and the Protestant majority in the north preferred continued union with Britain. Southern Ireland was granted dominion status and became the Irish Free State in 1921, and in 1937 it adopted the name Éire (Ireland) and became a sovereign independent country. It remained neutral during World War II. Britain recognized the status of Ireland in 1949 but declared that cession of the northern six counties (Northern Ireland) could not occur without the consent of the Parliament of Northern Ireland. In 1973 Ireland joined the European Economic Community (later the European Community); it is now a member of the European Union. The last decades of the 20th century were dominated by sectarian hostilities between the island's Catholics and Protestants over the status of Northern Ireland. The Irish government played a pivotal role in negotiating and winning public support for the Belfast Agreement (1998), which gave the country a consultative role in the affairs of Northern Ireland and modified Ireland's constitution to remove its claim to the territory of the entire island.

For more information on Ireland, visit Britannica.com.

Ireland's most famous dance personality is Ninette de Valois, who spent most of her working life in England, but did form an eight-year collaboration with the Abbey Theatre (1926-34) in which she notably staged some plays by Yeats and also set up the short-lived Abbey School of Ballet. In 1945 Joan Denise Moriarty set up a ballet school in Cork, from which emerged the semi-professional Cork Ballet Company. It gave its first performance at the Cork Opera House in June 1947 and had annual seasons there, often with guest artists. During the 1960s there were two unsuccessful attempts to found permanent professional ballet companies but both failed due to lack of funds. In 1974 Moriarty founded the state-funded fully professional Irish Ballet Company, which became the Irish National Ballet in 1983. She created several works for it including The Playboy of the Western World (mus. Sean O'Riada, 1978). Domi Reiter-Stoffer was artistic adviser from 1974 to 1989 and created several works for the company including Lady of the Camellias (mus. Saint-Saëns, 1984). In 1986 Vourenjuuri-Robinson took over as director but in 1989 the Irish Arts Council withdrew funding from it, as well as from Dublin Contemporary Dance Theatre, and both companies folded. In 1997 Anne Maher founded Ballet Ireland in Dublin, to try to re-establish classical ballet in the city, while Cork City Ballet, under the direction of Alan Foley, performs a small repertory of classical excerpts and some modern ballets by Bigonzettti and others. There are several modern dance groups but John Scott's Irish Modern Dance Theatre (1991) and CoisCéim (1995) are among the few to have attained a high profile. The country's best-known dance activity is Irish step dance which acquired huge international popularity during the 1990s through the hit show Riverdance and its various stage spin-offs.

University education in Ireland commenced in 1591 with a royal charter for the foundation of Trinity College, Dublin. Among the first students to enter when it opened in 1592 were William Daniel and James Ussher, the latter making a journey to London in 1603 with Dr Luke Challoner in order to buy books to form the nucleus of a university library. By the 18th cent. it had come to include many Irish manuscripts, including the Book of Kells, the Book of Leinster, and the Book of Durrow. Under the Act of Union, TCD Library acquired entitlement to copies of all books published in the Kingdom. From the outset the University was essentially an Anglican foundation with the primary purpose of promoting the Reformation. TCD became a large landowner under the plantations. It remained the only chartered institution of higher learning in the country until 1795, when St Patrick's College, Maynooth, was founded as a Roman Catholic centre of higher education. It was not until 1970 that the Catholic clergy removed the ‘ban’ on Catholics entering TCD, although Presbyterians had been increasingly numerous there since the turn of the century. In 1800 Maynooth was opened to lay students, but within a short time it became an exclusively clerical seminary, granting awards of the Pontifical University in Rome. Because of the Anglican ethos of TCD, pressure mounted from the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian Churches in the early decades of the 19th cent. for what each could regard as appropriate third-level institutions. In 1845 legislation was passed establishing the Queen's University of Ireland, with constituent colleges in Belfast, Cork, and Galway. These were opposed as ‘godless colleges’ by many Presbyterians and by the Catholic hierarchy; and, because of their allegedly secular ethos and the absence of guarantees protecting Catholic educational interests, neither Queen's College, Cork, nor Queen's College, Galway, achieved the full support of Catholics. The Belfast College, catering for the predominantly Presbyterian population of the northeast, enjoyed greater success, however. In 1854, in an attempt to provide university education for Catholics from its own resources, the Church hierarchy founded the Catholic University of Ireland under the rectorship of Cardinal John Henry Newman. However, it lasted only four years. Increased pressure on government from an ever more confident Catholic clergy and middle class led to the abolition of the Queen's University and the establishment of the Royal University of Ireland in 1879. The Royal University was an examining body, publishing syllabuses and setting papers for which candidates were prepared mainly in various recognized colleges throughout the country, notably the Queen's Colleges and University College, Dublin (UCD). The latter was established on St Stephen's Green, in buildings that formerly housed the Catholic University, with members of the Society of Jesus for the most part as its lecturers, and it was here that James Joyce received his university education. Also associated with the Royal University was Magee College in Derry, founded in 1865 as a Presbyterian theological institution. The Royal University was notable in that it was the first university in Ireland to admit women to degrees. In 1908 the National University of Ireland (NUI) and the Queen's University of Belfast (QUB) were established as two new and separate teaching universities. The National University was a federal university consisting of the University Colleges in Cork (UCC), Dublin (UCD), and Galway (UCG). St Patrick's College, Maynooth, became a recognized university institution within NUI. At the same time Magee College became an associate college of the University of Dublin (TCD), retaining this link until it was affiliated to the New University of Ulster (NUU) established at Coleraine in 1968. In 1984 NUU was amalgamated with the Northern Ireland Polytechnic to form the University of Ulster (UU), with campuses at Jordanstown (UUJ), Belfast (UUB), Coleraine (UUC), and Derry (UUM, though still known as Magee). Further additions to the university system in Ireland resulted from the transformation of the two National Institutes of Higher Education (NIHE) in Limerick and Dublin into the University of Limerick (UL) and Dublin City University (DCU) in 1989, St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, later becoming affiliated to the latter.

This entry is a subtopic of British Isles.

The first settlers, the Mesolithic people, came to Ireland about 7000 B.C.E. and lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering. Neolithic colonists introduced domestic animals and crops about 4000 B.C.E. Cultivated cereals included emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum), bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), and barley. Wild foods, such as hazelnuts and dried crabapples, were stored. Farming, crops and livestock, continued during the Bronze Age (2000–700 B.C.E.) and the pre-Christian Iron Age (700 B.C.E.–500 C.E.), as is evident from faunal remains and from the range of quernstones for saddle, beehive, and disk querns used to process cereals for domestic use.

In the historical period literary data of various kinds supplement the archaeological record. Religious texts in Old Irish and Latin from the Early Christian period (500–1000 C.E.) describe monastic and penitential diets, and the Old Irish law tracts of the seventh and eighth centuries provide insight into food-production strategies, diets, and hospitality obligations. Prestige foods are correlated with social rank according to the general principle that everyone is to be fed according to his or her rank. Persons of higher social status enjoyed a greater variety and quality of food than those of lower rank. Milk and cereal products were the basis of the diet, and a distinction was sometimes made between winter and summer foods. The former apparently consisted of cereals and meat and the latter mainly of dairy produce.

Milk and Milk Products

Milk, "good when fresh, good when old, good when thick, good when thin," was considered the best food. Fresh milk was a high-status food of sufficient prestige to be served as a refreshment to guests in secular and monastic settings. Many milk products are mentioned in the early Irish legal tracts and in Aislinge Meic Con Glinne (Vision of Mac Con Glinne), an early medieval satirical text in the Irish language rich in food imagery and probably the most important source of information about food in medieval Ireland. Butter, curds, cheese, and whole-milk or skim-milk whey were common elements of the diet. Butter was often portrayed as a luxury food. It was part of the food rents a client was obliged to give to his or her lord and a festive food for monastic communities. Curds, formed naturally in milk or by using rennet, were a common summer food included in food rents and apparently a normal part of the monastic diet. Cheese, in soft and hard varieties, was of great importance in the early Irish and medieval diet. Whey, the liquid product of the preparation of curds and cheese, was rather sour, but diluted with water it was prominent in the stricter monastic diets of the early Irish Church. Goat's milk whey, considered to have medicinal properties, was still in regular use in parts of Ireland in the early nineteenth century.

These milk products held their ancient status in the diet to varying degrees until the threshold of the eighteenth century, when forces of commercialization and modernization during the modern period altered levels of consumption and ultimately the dietary status of some milk products. Milk and butter remained basic foodstuffs, and their dietary and economic significance is reflected in the richness of the repertoire of beliefs, customs, and legends concerned with the protection of cows at the boundary festival of May, traditionally regarded as the commencement of summer and the milking seasons in Ireland, when the milch cows were transferred to the lush green pastures. Cheese making, which essentially died out in the eighteenth century, probably due to the substantial international butter and provisions trade from Ireland, made a significant comeback in the late twentieth century.

Cereal Products

Wheat products were consumed mainly as porridge and bread in early and medieval Ireland. Porridge was food for children especially, and a watery type figured prominently as penitential fare in monasteries. Wheaten bread was a high-status food. Climatic conditions favored barley and oat growing. Barley, used in ale production, was also a bread grain with monastic and penitential connotations. Oat, a low-status grain, was probably the chief cereal crop, most commonly used for oaten porridge and bread. Baking equipment mentioned in the early literature, iron griddles and bake stones, indicates flat bread production on an ovenless hearth. Thin, unleavened oaten bread, eaten mostly with butter, was universal in medieval Ireland and remained the everyday bread in parts of the north and west until the nineteenth century. Barley and rye breads or breads of mixed cereals were still eaten in parts of eastern Ireland in the early nineteenth century.

Leavened wheaten bread baked in built-up ovens also has been eaten since medieval times, especially in strong Anglo-Norman areas in East Ireland, where commercial bakeries were established. English-style breads were available in cities in the early seventeenth century, and public or common bake houses are attested from this period in some urban areas. Built-up ovens might be found in larger inns and prosperous households, but general home production of leavened bread, baked in a pot oven on the open hearth, dates from the nineteenth century, when bicarbonate of soda, combined with sour milk or buttermilk, was used as a leaven.

A refreshing drink called sowens was made from slightly fermented wheat husks. Used as a substitute for fresh milk in tea or for sour milk in bread making when milk was scarce, it replaced milk on Spy Wednesday (the Wednesday of Holy Week) and Good Friday as a form of penance. A jelly called flummery, procured from the liquid by boiling, was widely used.

Meat, Fowl, and Fish

Beef and mutton have been eaten in Ireland from prehistoric times, and meat was still considered a status food in the early twenty-first century. Pigs have been raised exclusively for their meat, and a variety of pork products have always been highly valued foodstuffs. Domestic fowl have been a significant part of the diet since early times, and eggs have also figured prominently. Wild fowl have been hunted, and seafowl provide seasonal, supplementary variations in diet in some seacoast areas.

Fish, including shellfish, have been a food of coastal communities since prehistoric times. Freshwater fish are mentioned prominently in early sources and in travelers' accounts throughout the medieval period. Fish were included in festive menus in the nineteenth century and were eaten fresh or cured in many ordinary households while the obligation of Friday abstinence from flesh meat remained in force.

Beverages

Milk and whey were the most popular drinks in early and medieval Ireland, but ale was a drink of great social importance. It was also regarded as a nutritional drink suitable for invalids and was featured in monastic diets at the celebration of Easter. Mead made by fermenting honey with water apparently was more prestigious than beer. Wine, an expensive import, was a festive drink in secular and monastic contexts. Whiskey distillation was known from the thirteenth century. Domestic ale and cider brewing declined drastically after the eighteenth century in the face of commercial breweries and distilleries.

Nonalcoholic beverages, such as coffee, chocolate, and tea, were consumed initially by the upper sections of society, as the elegant silverware of the eighteenth and nineteenth century shows. But tea was consumed by all sections of society by the end of the nineteenth century.

Vegetables and Fruit

From early times the Irish cultivated a variety of plants for food. Garden peas and broad beans are mentioned in an eighth-century law text, and it appears that some member of the allium family (possibly onion), leeks, cabbages, chives, and some root vegetables were also grown. Pulses were significant in areas of strong Anglo-Norman settlement in medieval times but were disappearing as a field crop by 1800, when vegetable growing declined due to market forces. Cabbage remained the main vegetable of the poor. Apples and plums were cultivated in early Ireland, and orchards were especially prominent in English-settled areas. Exotic fruits were grown in the walled gardens of the gentry or were imported for the large urban markets. A range of wild vegetables and fruits, especially crabapples, bilberries, and blackberries, were exploited seasonally.

Edible Seaweeds

Edible algae have been traditionally used as supplementary food products along the coast of Ireland. Duileasc (Palmaria palmata), anglicized as "dulse" or "dilisk" and frequently mentioned in the early Irish law texts, is one of the most popularly consumed seaweeds in Ireland. Rich in potassium and magnesium, it is eaten raw on its own or in salads, or it is stewed and served as a relish or a condiment for potatoes or bread. Sleabhach (Porphyra), anglicized as "sloke," is boiled, dressed with butter, and seasoned and eaten as an independent dish or with potatoes. Carraigin (Chondrus crispus), or carrageen moss, has traditionally been valued for its medicinal and nutritional qualities. Used earlier as a milk thickener and boiled in milk to make a blancmange, it has come to be regarded as a health food.

Collecting shore foods, such as edible seaweeds and shellfish, was a common activity along the Atlantic Coast of Ireland on Good Friday, a day of strict abstinence. The foodstuffs collected were eaten as the main meal rather than as an accompaniment to potatoes.

Potatoes

Introduced in Ireland toward the end of the sixteenth century, the potato was widely consumed by all social classes, with varying degrees of emphasis, by the nineteenth century. Its widespread diffusion is evident in the broad context of the evolution in the Irish diet from the seventeenth century. In the wake of the English conquest of Ireland, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were a time of sustained transition in Irish economic, demographic, and social life. Demographic expansion beginning in 1600 led to a population in excess of 8 million by 1800. The food supply altered strikingly during that period. The diet of the affluent remained rich and varied, while commercialization gradually removed milk and butter from the diet of the poor and resulted in an increased emphasis on grain products. The commercialization of grain and the difficulty in accessing land during the eighteenth century forced the poorer sections of society to depend on the potato, which was the dietary staple par excellence of about 3 million Irish people by the early nineteenth century. Fungus-induced potato crop failures from 1845 to 1848 caused the great Irish famine, a major human disaster.

Diets changed gradually in the postfamine years, and while the potato was but one of many staples by the end of the nineteenth century, it never lost its appeal. The ripening of the new potato crop in the autumn remained a matter for celebration. In many parts of the country the first meal of this crop consisted of mashed potatoes with scallions and seasoning. Colcannon, typically associated with Halloween, is made of mashed potatoes mixed with a little fresh milk, chopped kale or green cabbage, fresh onions, and seasoning with a large knob of butter placed on the top. In some parts people originally ate it from a communal dish.

Boiled potatoes are also the basic ingredient for potato cakes. The mashed potatoes are mixed with melted butter, seasoning, and sufficient flour to bind the dough. Cut into triangles, called farls, or individual small, round cakes, they are cooked on both sides on a hot, lightly floured griddle or in a hot pan with melted butter or bacon fat. Apple potato cake or "fadge" was popularly associated with Halloween in northeast Ireland. The potato cake mixture was divided in two, and layers of raw sliced apples were placed on the base, then the apples were covered with the remaining dough. The cake was baked in the pot oven until almost ready. At that point the upper crust was peeled back, and brown sugar was sprinkled on the apples. The cake was returned to the oven until the sugar melted. "Stampy" cakes or pancakes were raw grated potatoes sieved and mixed with flour, baking powder, seasoning, a beaten egg, and fresh milk and cooked on the griddle or pan.

The menus of restaurants that offer "traditional Irish cuisine" include such popular foods, which also were commercially produced by the late twentieth century. But as Irish society becomes increasingly pluralistic, the socalled "international cuisine" and a wide range of ethnic restaurants characterize the public provision of food in major urban areas. In the private sphere, however, relatively plain, freshly cooked food for each meal is the norm. Milk, bread, butter, meat, vegetables, and potatoes, though the last are of declining importance, remain the basic elements of the Irish diet.

Bibliography

Cullen, L. M. The Emergence of Modern Ireland, 1600–1900. London: Batsford, 1981.

Danaher, Kevin. The Year in Ireland. Cork, Ireland: Mercier, 1972.

Flanagan, Laurence. Ancient Ireland: Life before the Celts. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 1998.

Jackson, Kenneth Hurlstone, ed. Aislinge Meic Con Glinne (Vision of Mac Con Glinne). Dublin: School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, 1990.

Kelly, Fergus. Early Irish Farming: A Study Based Mainly on theLaw-Texts of the 7th and 8th Centuries A.D. Dublin: School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, 1997.

Lucas, A. T. "Irish Food before the Potato." Gwerin 3, no. 2 (1960): 8–40.

Lysaght, Patricia. "Bealtaine: Women, Milk, and Magic at the Boundary Festival of May." In Milk and Milk Products from Medieval to Modern Times, edited by Patricia Lysaght, pp. 208–229. Edinburgh: Canongate Academic, 1994.

Lysaght, Patricia. "Food-Provision Strategies on the Great Blasket Island: Sea-bird Fowling." In Food from Nature: Attitudes, Strategies, and Culinary Practices, edited by Patricia Lysaght, pp. 333–336. Uppsala: The Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for Swedish Folk Culture, 2000.

Lysaght, Patricia. "Innovation in Food—The Case of Tea in Ireland." Ulster Folklife 33 (1987): 44–71.

Ó Danachair, Caoimhín. "Bread in Ireland." In Food in Perspective, edited by Trefor M. Owen and Alexander Fenton, pp. 57–67. Edinburgh: John Donald, 1981.

O'Neill, Timothy P. "Food." In Life and Tradition in Rural Ireland, edited by Timothy P. O'Neill, pp. 56–67. London: Dent, 1977.

Ó Sé, Michael. "Old Irish Cheeses and Other Milk Products." Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 53 (1948): 82–87.

Sexton, Regina. A Little History of Irish Food. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 1998.

—Patricia Lysaght

Country occupying most of the island of Ireland, which it shares with Northern Ireland. Its capital and largest city is Dublin.

• The continuing conflict between Irish Roman Catholics and Protestants began when Henry VIII of England imposed the Protestant Church of Ireland upon a largely Catholic population.
• The Easter Rebellion of 1916, although unsuccessful, became a symbolic impetus for Irish nationalists struggling against British rule.
• In 1918, Catholic nationalists proclaimed an Irish republic, and in 1920, two separate parliaments for Catholic Ireland and Northern Ireland were established.
• A treaty with Britain in 1922 established the Irish Free State. The Republic of Ireland was proclaimed in 1949.

The international dialing code for Ireland is:   353

Local Time: Aug 8, 1:57 AM

Introduction

Geography

People

Government

Economy

Transportation

Military

Transnational Issues

Recipes

Geographic Setting and Environment

Ireland, or officially the Republic of Ireland, is an island nation in the North Atlantic Ocean. (The northernmost part of the island is Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.) Almost 20 percent of the land is devoted to farming. Less than 10 percent of farmland is used to grow crops and the majority is used as grazing land for livestock.

History and Food

The arrival of the Anglo-Normans in Ireland in 1169 affected both farming and diet in Ireland. (Anglo-Normans are the Normans who remained in England after the Norman Conquest. Led by William the Conqueror, the Normans came from the Normandy region of France in 1066.) Wheat, peas, and beans became staple foods and people began preparing more elaborate dishes. Food customs were also changing, as French and Italian cooking customs influenced the upper-class cuisine.

The potato was introduced to Ireland by the late 1500s. Within 200 years it had replaced older staples, including oats and dairy products. The potato became the mainstay of the Irish diet. In the 1840s, the country's heavy reliance on potatoes led to the disaster known as the Irish Potato Famine. Most Irish farmers grew one particular variety of potato, which turned out to be highly sensitive to disease. A potato blight that had started in Belgium swept the country. It destroyed one-third of Ireland's potato crop in 1845 and triggered widespread famine. In the next two years, two-thirds of the crop was destroyed. More than one million people died as a result of the potato blight, and two million emigrated (moved away) to other countries. Even though they had suffered through the Irish Potato Famine (also called the Great Famine), Irish people continued to love potatoes. As soon as the spread of the disease stopped, the potato returned its place as the staple food in the Irish diet. Farmers began to spray their crops with chemicals to protect them from disease. As of 2001 the Irish were consuming more potatoes than most countries in the world.

Foods of the Irish

Irish food is known for the quality and freshness of its ingredients. Most cooking is done without herbs or spices, except for salt and pepper. Foods are usually served without sauce or gravy.

The staples of the Irish diet have traditionally been potatoes, grains (especially oats), and dairy products. Potatoes still appear at most Irish meals, with potato scones, similar to biscuits or muffins, a specialty in the north. The Irish have also been accomplished cheesemakers for centuries. Ireland makes about fifty types of homemade "farmhouse" cheeses, which are considered delicacies.

Soups of all types, seafood, and meats also play important roles in the Irish diet. Irish soups are thick, hearty, and filling, with potatoes, seafood, and various meats being common ingredients. Since their country is surrounded by water, the Irish enjoy many types of seafood, including salmon, scallops, lobster, mussels, and oysters. However, meat is eaten more frequently at Irish meals. The most common meats are beef, lamb, and pork. A typical Irish dinner consists of potatoes (cooked whole), cabbage, and meat.

Irish stew has been recognized as the national dish for at least two centuries. A poem from the early 1800s praised Irish stew for satisfying the hunger of anyone who ate it:

Then hurrah for an Irish Stew
That will stick to your belly like glue.

Bread is an important part of Irish culture. Fresh soda bread, a crusty brown bread made from whole-wheat flour and buttermilk, is a national dish of Ireland. Irish bakers don't stop with soda bread, however. They bake a wide variety of other hearty breads and cakes.

The most common everyday beverage in Ireland is tea. Popular alcoholic beverages include whiskey, beer, and ale. Coffee mixed with whiskey and whipped cream is known throughout the world as "Irish coffee."

See Traditional Irish Stew recipe.

See Irish Soda Bread recipe.

See Corned Beef with Cabbage recipe.

See Champ recipe.

Food for Religious and Holiday Celebrations

The most festive holiday meal of the year is Christmas dinner, followed by Easter Sunday dinner. During the 40 days of Lent, Irish Catholics choose certain foods they wish to not eat. At one time, all animal products, including milk, butter, and eggs, were not to be consumed during Lent. The poorer Catholics of Ireland were often left to eat only oatcakes for the 40-day period. On Good Friday, the Friday before Easter Sunday, the Irish eat hot cross buns, a light, bread-like pastry topped with a frosting cross that holds spiritual meaning.

Another day on the Catholic calendar that the Irish Catholics do not eat meat is All Saints' Day (November 1). Each county has its own special meatless dishes for this occasion. Popular dishes include oatcakes, pancakes, potato pudding, apple cake, and blackberry pies. For Christmas, people throughout Ireland eat spiced beef, and a fancy Christmas cake full of dried and candied fruits for dessert.

All Saints' Day Dinner

• Nettle soup
• Colcannon
• Poached plaice fillets
• Soda bread
• Barm Brack
• Carrot pudding

Christmas Dinner

• Kidney soup
• Christmas goose (roasted) with chestnut stuffing and port sauce
• Garden peas with fresh mint
• Potato oat cakes
• Christmas cake
• Mince pies

See Colcannon recipe.

See Barm Brack recipe.

See Irish Christmas Cake recipe.

Mealtime Customs

The Irish value hospitality, and generous portions of food are common at home and in restaurants.

A large breakfast was traditionally eaten in rural Ireland. Common breakfast foods included soda bread, pancakes, porridge, eggs, and various meat products. A full oldfashioned country breakfast might include fresh fruit juice, porridge, a "mixed grill" of breakfast meats and black pudding, scones, and soda bread with butter and preserves, tea, and coffee with hot milk.

Dinner, the main meal of the day, used to be eaten at lunchtime. A typical dish was "Dublin coddle," a bacon, sausage, potato, and onion soup. Today, however, many Irish people eat lighter meals in the morning and at midday. They have their main meal later in the day, when they come home from work or school. Lunch is often a bowl of hot soup that is served with freshly baked soda bread. However, many pubs (bars) still serve the traditional large midday dinner. "Supper" in Ireland means a late-night snack. A typical supper is a slice of bread with butter and a glass of milk.

See Dublin Coddle recipe.

See Scones recipe.

See Apple Cake recipe.

Politics, Economics, and Nutrition

Modern Ireland has few problems related to availability of food. In the early part of 2001, Irish cattle and sheep farmers, like other farmers in Europe, were fighting against an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease, a deadly viral disease that is fatal to hoofed animals. By summer, the outbreak had been brought under control.

Irish citizens generally receive adequate nutrition in their diets, and Irish children are considered healthy by international health care agencies.

Further Study

Books

Albyn, Carole Lisa, and Lois Webb. The Multicultural Cookbook for Students. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1993.

Allen, Darina. The Complete Book of Irish Country Cooking: Traditional and Wholesome Recipes from Ireland. New York: Penguin, 1995.

Connery, Clare.In An Irish Country Kitchen. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.

Drennan, Matthew. Irish: The Taste of Ireland in Traditional Home Cooking. London: Lorenz Books, 1999.

Halvorsen, Francine. Eating Around the World in Your Neighborhood. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998.

Johnson, Margaret M. The Irish Heritage Cookbook. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1999.

Web Sites

GoIreland.com. [Online] Available http://www.goireland.com/ireland/soda_bread.htm (accessed August 7, 2001).

Ireland, The Food Island. [Online] Available http://www.foodisland.com (accessed July 9, 2001).

Pagan and Christian Beliefs

[For information regarding ancient Ireland, see Celts. ]

Although nominally Christianized, there is little doubt that the early medieval Irish retained many remnants of their former paganism, especially those with elements of magic. The writings of the Welsh historian Giraldus Cambrensis (ca. 1147-1220) point to this. This is the first known account of Irish manners and customs after the invasion of the country by the Anglo-Normans. His description, for example, of the Purgatory of St. Patrick in Lough Derg, County Donegal, suggests that the demonology of the Catholic Church had already fused with the animism of earlier Irish tradition. He states:

There is a lake in Ulster containing an island divided into two parts. In one of these stands a church of especial sanctity, and it is most agreeable and delightful, as well as beyond measure glorious for the visitations of angels and the multitude of the saints who visibly frequent it. The other part, being covered with rugged crags, is reported to be the resort of devils only, and to be almost always the theatre on which crowds of evil spirits visibly perform their rites. This part of the island contains nine pits, and should any one perchance venture to spend the night in one of them (which has been done, we know, at times, by some rash men), he is immediately seized by the malignant spirits, who so severely torture him during the whole night, inflicting on him such unutterable sufferings by fire and water, and other torments of various kinds, that when morning comes scarcely any spark of life is found left in his wretched body. It is said that any one who has once submitted to these torments as a penance imposed upon him, will not afterwards undergo the pains of hell, unless he commit some sin of a deeper dye.

"This place is called by the natives the Purgatory of St. Patrick. For he, having to argue with a heathen race concerning the torments of hell, reserved for the reprobate, and the real nature and eternal duration of the future life, in order to impress on the rude minds of the unbelievers a mysterious faith in doctrines so new, so strange, so opposed to their prejudices, procured by the efficacy of his prayers an exemplification of both states even on earth, as a salutary lesson to the stubborn minds of the people.

Human Animals

The ancient Irish believed in the possibility of the transformation of human beings into animals. Giraldus, in another narrative of facts purporting to have come under his personal notice, shows that this belief had lost none of its significance with the Irish of the latter half of the twelfth century. The case is also interesting as being one of the first recorded examples of lycanthropy in the British Isles: "About three years before the arrival of Earl John in Ireland, it chanced that a priest, who was journeying from Ulster towards Meath, was benighted in a certain wood on the borders of Meath. While, in company with only a young lad, he was watching by a fire which he had kindled under the branches of a spreading tree, lo! a wolf came up to them, and immediately addressed them to this effect: 'Rest secure, and be not afraid, for there is no reason you should fear, where no fear is!' The travellers being struck with astonishment and alarm, the wolf added some orthodox words referring to God. The priest then implored him, and adjured him by Almighty God and faith in the Trinity, not to hurt them, but to inform them what creature it was in the shape of a beast uttered human words. The wolf, after giving catholic replies to all questions, added at last: 'There are two of us, a man and a woman, natives of Ossory, who, through the curse of Natalis, saint and abbot, are compelled every seven years to put off the human form, and depart from the dwellings of men. Quitting entirely the human form, we assume that of wolves. At the end of the seven years, if they chance to survive, two others being substituted in their places, they return to their country and their former shape. And now, she who is my partner in this visitation lies dangerously sick not far from hence, and, as she is at the point of death, I beseech you, inspired by divine charity, to give her the consolations of your priestly office.' "At this wood the priest followed the wolf trembling, as he led the way to a tree at no great distance, in the hollow of which he beheld a she-wolf, who under that shape was pouring forth human sighs and groans. On seeing the priest, having saluted him with human courtesy, she gave thanks to God, who in this extremity had vouchsafed to visit her with such consolation. She then received from the priest all the rites of the church duly performed, as far as the last communion. This also she importunately demanded, earnestly supplicating him to complete his good offices by giving her the viaticum. The priest stoutly asserting that he was not provided with it, the he-wolf, who had withdrawn to a short distance, came back and pointed out a small missal-book, containing some consecrated wafers, which the priest carried on his journey, suspended from his neck, under his garment, after the fashion of the country. He then intreated him not to deny them the gift of God, and the aid destined for them by Divine Providence; and, to remove all doubt, using his claw for a hand, he tore off the skin of the she-wolf, from the head down to the navel, folding it back. Thus she immediately presented the form of an old woman. The priest, seeing this, and compelled by his fear more than his reason, gave the communion; the recipient having earnestly implored it, and devoutly partaking of it. Immediately afterwards the he-wolf rolled back the skin and fitted it to its original form.

"These rites having been duly, rather than