Early Irish Diet (2024)

FAQs

What was the early Irish diet? ›

The main parts of the early Irish diet were milk and cereals. Butter, buttermilk and cheeses also were very popular. People also ate fish and meat. Until the Normans arrived in Ireland around 1169 cows were too expensive to be killed for meat.

They ate enormous amounts of potatoes. In the course of their three meals per day, adult males consumed 12 to 14 pounds of potatoes per day! Women and children over the age of 10 ate about 11 pounds of potatoes each day; younger children ate about five pounds of potatoes per day.

New research has warned that the Irish diet is rich in unsustainable foods, is causing nutritional and financial problems and is not good for the environment. The findings are explored in two new reports published by researchers from the School of Natural Sciences at Trinity College Dublin.

The crop failures were caused by late blight, a disease that destroys both the leaves and the edible roots, or tubers, of the potato plant. The causative agent of late blight is the water mold Phytophthora infestans. The Irish famine was the worst to occur in Europe in the 19th century.

Grains, either as bread or porridge, were the other mainstay of the pre-potato Irish diet, and the most common was the humble oat, usually made into oatcakes and griddled (ovens hadn't really taken off yet).

Vegetables grown and eaten in Ireland included onions, chives, cabbage, celery, wild garlic and leeks. Fat-hen (Chenopodium album) is often found on pre Norman archaeological sites and appears to have been an important part of the diet, as it still is in Northern India.

The question is often asked, why didn't the Irish eat more fish during the Famine? A lot of energy is required to work as a fisherman. Because people were starving they did not have the energy that would be required to go fishing, haul up nets and drag the boats ashore.

The rural Irish poor, many of whom were subsistence farmers renting small plots of ground, were reliant on the potato for their staple diet. When a mysterious blight, now known as Phytophthora infestans, destroyed the potato harvest huge numbers faced starvation.

Abstract. Phytophthora infestans is a destructive plant pathogen best known for causing the disease that triggered the Irish potato famine and remains the most costly potato pathogen to manage worldwide.

Irish stew: This is the dish Irish people are most likely to roll out for St. Patrick's Day celebrations. Hearty chunks of lamb are slow-cooked in a rich gravy with onion, potatoes, carrot and parsley.

What was the Irish Viking diet? ›

Meat, fish, vegetables, cereals and milk products were all an important part of their diet. Sweet food was consumed in the form of berries, fruit and honey and archaeological evidence has found that there was a large consumption of apples, bilberries, blackberries and sloes in Dublin.

This is where you eat normally at certain times and then fast during other times. There are different versions, but the 5:2 diet involves eating a normal, healthy diet for five days every week and 'fasting' on the remaining two days. On a 'fast' day, you would typically consume between 500 and 600 calories.

The landed proprietors in Ireland were held in Britain to have created the conditions that led to the famine. However, it was asserted that the British parliament since the Act of Union of 1800 was partly to blame.

The donors included the rich and the famous—President Polk, of the United States, Queen Victoria, Pope Pius IX—while people in Italy, Antigua, France, Venezuela, Hong Kong and Barbados were among those who sent contributions.

As the people became too weak to labour, British and Anglo-Irish landlords evicted them from their miserable dwellings, leaving them at the mercy of the elements. One and a half million Irish people starved to death, while massive quantities of food were being exported from their country to Britain.

Parts of the population also ate millet. Beef, pork, mutton, goat meat and dairy products played a minor role in everyone's diet, and chicken, eggs, salmon and dog meat were occasional additions.

Further inland, famine foods included stinging nettle, wild mustard, sorrel, and watercress. In the area of Skibbereen, people resorted to eating donkey meat, earning the nickname "Donkey Aters" (Eaters) for people in the area. Others ate dogs, cats, corncrakes, rotten pigs, and even human flesh.