100 Fun Facts About Irish Food

Soda bread rises because baking soda reacts with the lactic acid in which ingredient?

The reaction starts immediately, so bakers mix the dough as little as possible and never knead it.

What is soda bread made with raisins colloquially called in Ireland?

The sweetened caraway-and-raisin version is now rare, while brown soda bread with smoked salmon came back via hotel menus in the 1960s.

In Ulster, the sweetened wholemeal variety of soda bread usually goes by what name?

Further south the same loaf is simply 'brown bread', and Ulster reserves 'soda bread' for the white savoury kind.

Colcannon is a traditional dish on St Patrick's Day and on the feast day of which other Irish saint?

The name likely comes from Irish words for a 'white-headed' cabbage, and the same root names the coot, a white-headed bird.

Champ is mashed potato mixed with butter, milk and which allium?

In some areas it was made with stinging nettles instead, and 'as thick as champ' remains a Hiberno-English insult.

On Samhain, a dish of champ with a spoon was left for the fairies under which tree?

It was also customary to make the dish with the first new potatoes of the harvest.

An old rhyme warns that if you can't make boxty, you'll never get a what?

Boxty is a griddle-fried potato pancake most associated with Leitrim, Cavan, Fermanagh and the north midlands.

Whatever the recipe, every version of boxty contains what?

Boiled boxty, cooked like dumplings, is a Halloween tradition around Cavan and Leitrim.

Which layered stew of sausages, rashers, potato and onion was reputedly a favourite of Jonathan Swift?

It is a Dublin dish through and through and turns up in James Joyce, and its pale, unbrowned look is a point of pride.

Enthusiasts of the Dublin sausage-and-rasher stew regard which step as an unacceptable cop-out?

The dish is braised gently in the stock from the meat, so everything stays pale, which is part of why outsiders find it off-putting.

Irish stew is traditionally made with root vegetables and which meat?

Mutton was cheaper because sheep were kept for wool and milk, so only old animals reached the pot, and they needed hours of slow cooking.

Many food historians believe the original meat in Irish stew was which animal?

The cauldron replaced the spit as the main cooking tool of ancient Ireland, and the potato only joined the pot much later.

According to Irish stew purists, which of these ingredients spoils the true dish?

The purist recipe is neck mutton chops or kid, potatoes, onions and water, simmered for up to two hours.

Finding the ring in a Halloween barmbrack traditionally means what for the person who gets it?

The pea meant no wedding that year, the stick a quarrelsome marriage, and the coin riches; today's shop-bought bracks keep only a toy ring.

What does 'bairín breac', the Irish name behind barmbrack, literally mean?

The speckles are the sultanas and raisins, which most recipes soak overnight in cold tea or whiskey first.

Chef Joe Sheridan invented Irish coffee in the early 1940s at which flying-boat terminal?

The terminal on the Shannon estuary was about 15 km from today's Shannon Airport, and he later emigrated to serve the drink in San Francisco.

Which San Francisco bar began serving Irish coffee in 1952 after a travel writer brought the idea home?

Stanton Delaplane of the San Francisco Chronicle had drunk it at Shannon and worked with the cafe to recreate it.

What was the first flavour of Tayto crisps, said to be the world's first seasoned crisp, in 1954?

Founder Joe 'Spud' Murphy's process was so novel that companies around the world sought to buy the rights; Salt & Vinegar followed in 1966.

Tayto's visitor attraction near Ashbourne, opened in 2010, was renamed what in 2023?

The Republic's Tayto and Northern Ireland's Tayto are entirely separate companies sharing a name and mascot under licence.

Baileys took its name from what?

Bailey's Bistro sat under the team's office in Greek Street, Soho; the R. A. Bailey signature on the label is fictional.

Which chocolate drink powder went into the very first Baileys prototype, mixed up in about 45 minutes?

The drink was launched in 1974 as the first Irish cream on the market, partly to use surplus cream from Express Dairies.

What is the declared alcohol content of Baileys Irish Cream?

The cream and whiskey are held together as an emulsion with refined vegetable oil, and no preservatives are needed.

Ornua, the co-operative behind Kerrygold butter, takes its name from Irish words meaning what?

It was the Irish Dairy Board from 1961 until 2015, and Kerrygold was chosen to evoke farming, naturalness and Irishness.

In which country was the Kerrygold brand first test-launched in October 1962?

The test was in the Winterhill area of the north-west; Germany followed after Ireland joined the EEC in 1973 and had national distribution there by 1982.

The Limerick dish 'packet and tripe' pairs tripe with which gelatinous pudding?

It was sometimes flavoured with tansy before that herb was found to be toxic, and it appears in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.

What are crubeens?

They were rural pub food eaten by hand like corn on the cob, and their saltiness conveniently made drinkers thirstier.

The blaa, a soft square white roll dusted with flour, is a speciality of which Irish city?

It won EU Protected Geographical Indication status in 2013, and just four bakeries sell about 12,000 of them a day.

A blaa is often filled with a luncheon meat that locals nickname what?

The breakfast blaa with egg, rasher and sausage outsells the breakfast roll in its home city.

Which takeaway dish did staff at Templeogue's Sunflower restaurant create off-menu around 2006?

Salt-and-chilli chips and chicken with peppers in a paper bag was voted Ireland's favourite takeaway dish in 2020.

Ireland's favourite deli food, sold in every petrol station, is a baguette filled with what?

It has been declared Ireland's favourite deli food, is sold in petrol stations everywhere, and comes with taco sauce if you know what you are doing.

According to a persistent Irish urban myth, red lemonade had been banned where?

Regulators had in fact only banned a carcinogenic dye; the drink is still a favourite mixer with whiskey.

Barry's Tea was founded in 1901 in which Irish city?

Several generations of the Barry family have also been elected as Fine Gael politicians.

Ireland's great tea rivalry pits Barry's against which other brand?

Barry's claims about 38 per cent of an Irish tea market worth roughly €85 million a year.

When Arthur Guinness took over the St James's Gate brewery in 1759, he signed a lease for how many years?

The rent was £45 a year, and the site became one of the largest breweries in the British Empire.

How can you tell the Guinness harp from the harp on Ireland's coat of arms?

Both are modelled on the Trinity College harp; the brewery registered its version as a trademark in 1876.

Which bird from John Gilroy's advertising posters became almost as much a Guinness symbol as the harp?

Novelist Dorothy L. Sayers worked on the campaign at Benson's and reportedly sketched the bird and wrote several of the ads.

Draught Guinness gets its creamy head from carbon dioxide mixed with which other gas?

The move to gas dispensing came in the 1960s, and the famous two-stage pour was kept mainly to reassure drinkers.

What is the pub game of landing your pint level on a letter of the glass's branding called?

It has had an Urban Dictionary entry since 2018 and variants argue over exactly where in the letter the line should sit.

The word whiskey comes from the Irish 'uisce beatha', meaning what?

Irish whiskey was once the most popular spirit in the world before a century of decline left the island with just two distilleries by 1966.

Although not a legal requirement, Irish whiskeys are commonly distilled how many times?

The extra run lifts lighter aromatic notes and strips out harsher elements, giving the smoother finish that contrasts with peaty Scotch.

Old Bushmills claims the world's oldest licence to distil, granted in 1608 by which king?

The licence went to landowner Sir Thomas Phillips; the actual Bushmills company was not registered until 1784.

By 1966, Ireland's whiskey industry had shrunk to how many operating distilleries?

There had been at least 28 in the 1890s; the 1987 launch of Cooley began the revival, and there were 32 by 2019.

Poitín gets its name from the Irish word 'pota', meaning what?

It refers to the small copper pot still, and stills were often set up on land boundaries so nobody could be sure who owned them.

Alongside 'Irish moonshine', what was the other common old nickname for poitín?

Distillers chose windy, broken weather so the smoke from their turf fires would not give them away to the police.

The Great Famine hit so hard partly because Ireland relied on which single potato variety?

Roughly a million people died and another million emigrated after blight swept through the near-monoculture.

Ireland's earlier Great Famine of 1739 was caused by what?

Before the potato, oats, wheat and barley eaten as porridge and flatbread were the staples of the Irish diet.

In which century was the potato first introduced into Ireland?

It started as a garden crop and became the main food of the poor, unusually quickly compared with the Continent, where elites shunned it for generations.

Which St Patrick's Day staple did Irish immigrants create by swapping boiled bacon for a cheaper salted meat?

At home beef was expensive and mostly exported, so bacon and cabbage was the everyday dish; corned beef was the cheap option in America.

The white sauce served with bacon and cabbage is most often flavoured with which herb?

The dish has been known since Roman times and stayed common in Ireland because families reared their own pigs and grew their own vegetables.

Which two breads distinguish a traditional Ulster fry from other full breakfasts?

An Ulster variant of the Scotch pancake often joins them, and the fry topped a poll as the province's favourite dish.

White pudding differs from black pudding chiefly because it contains no what?

Modern recipes use suet or fat, oatmeal or barley, breadcrumbs and sometimes pork or liver, and it is a full-Irish staple.

Which County Kerry village names a black pudding with EU protected geographical status?

Black pudding is one of the oldest sausage forms, historically tied to the Martinmas slaughter, and this village version earned EU protection.

Dulse, the dried red seaweed snack, is traditionally sold at the Ould Lammas Fair in which Antrim town?

Along the Ulster coast it is eaten dried and raw, and on the west coast the same seaweed is called dillisk.

Carrageen moss, gathered on Irish coasts, is the basis of a traditional drink reputed to ward off what?

Its gelling power is what makes it useful in cooking, and researchers are studying it as an edible alternative to plastic.

Cashel Blue cheese takes its name from a famous rock in which county?

The Grubb family made the first eight cheeses in 1984 in an old copper brewer's vat; their sheep's-milk sister cheese is Crozier Blue.

'Dublin Lawyer' is a modern Irish dish of what?

Salmon and cod remain the most commonly eaten fish, and Galway hosts an international oyster festival every September.

Which chocolate bar was invented at Cadbury's Coolock factory in Dublin in the 1980s?

The Dublin plant of 1933 was the first Cadbury factory outside Britain, and the Irish arm exports over 200 products to 30 countries.

Irish cooking pioneer Myrtle Allen is associated with which country house and school?

The new Irish cuisine she championed leans on fresh fish and shellfish, farmhouse cheeses, soda bread and, of course, the potato.

Irish farmers who bled cattle and mixed the blood with milk and butter were compared to which African people?

During the Famine, starving families fried it with herbs, garlic, oats and butter as a subsistence meal.

Why did the ancient Irish bury barrels of butter in peat bogs?

The bog's stable, oxygen-free conditions aged it into something like North African smen.

Who is credited in legend with bringing honeybees to Ireland around the year 540?

The mid-7th-century Bechbretha, or 'bee judgements', laid down early Irish beekeeping law.

What was the early Irish collective term for milk, butter, curds and cheese?

It means 'white foods'; táth was a pressed curd, tánach a hard cheese and mulchán a skimmed-milk cheese.

What was a mether, in traditional Irish gatherings?

The two- or four-handled vessel was passed around at feasts.

Which three animals did the Normans introduce to Ireland's diet in the 12th century?

They may also have brought freshwater fish such as pike.

Bilberries, known in Irish as fraochán, were traditionally picked on which August festival?

Hazelnuts were the most important nut, and apples, pears, cherries and plums the common fruits.

Ireland's first fish and chips were sold in Dublin in the 1880s by an immigrant from which country?

Giuseppe Cervi's wife would ask customers 'Uno di questa, uno di quella?', a phrase locals turned into 'one and one'.

What is the Irish word for a chip shop?

Fish and chips remain a popular takeaway, alongside the modern spice bag.

Beer-making arrived in Ireland only in which century, until which ale was the urban staple?

Ale had a short shelf life, so brewing it was a big industry in Norse and Anglo-Norman towns.

What was menedach, the medieval paste of grains kneaded with butter?

It may have been an early roux or a kind of polenta, and could be spread on bread.

What are the burnt mounds called fulachtaí fia, common across Bronze Age Ireland?

Ireland has more of them than anywhere in Europe; hazelnuts may have been boiled there to extract oil.

The letters D.E.W. on Tullamore whiskey bottles are whose initials?

Williams rose from general manager to owner of the 1829 distillery, and in 1893 he helped bring electricity and the first telephone line to the town.

Paddy whiskey from Cork took its name from what kind of employee?

Paddy Flaherty was so good at his job, free rounds included, that publicans reordered 'Paddy Flaherty's whiskey', and the distillery made the name official in 1912.

John Jameson, who founded his Dublin distillery in 1780, was originally from which country?

He was a lawyer from Alloa who married into the Haig whisky family, and his grandson Guglielmo Marconi went on to invent wireless telegraphy.

Ireland's single pot still whiskey style arose in 1785 to dodge a tax on what?

Mixing in unmalted raw grain cut the tax bill and gave the spirit its 'spicier bristle'; the tax was repealed in 1855 but the style stuck.

After the 1661 tax, spirit from registered Irish distillers was known by what name?

Registration was voluntary until 1761, and the landlords meant to enforce the law were often collecting rent from the illicit distillers themselves.

The Guinness Book of Records began after a shooting-party argument about which bird?

Brewery boss Sir Hugh Beaver missed his shot in County Wexford in 1951, could not settle the 'fastest game bird' row in any book, and spotted a gap in the market.

About 40 percent of all Guinness is brewed and sold on which continent?

Foreign Extra Stout is the favourite there, and three of the five Guinness-owned breweries worldwide are on the continent.

Smithwick's red ale was first brewed in 1710 on the site of a Franciscan abbey in which city?

Monks had brewed on the site since the 14th century; when the brewery closed in 2013 it was Ireland's oldest still operating.

Bulmers Irish cider from Clonmel is sold outside Ireland under which name?

England's H. P. Bulmer kept the worldwide rights to the Bulmers name, so the export brand debuted in Mallorca in 1999 before it ever reached Britain.

Which Dutch brewer now owns both of Cork's stouts, Murphy's and Beamish?

Murphy's holds only about 5 per cent of the Irish stout market, but that is mostly a 28 per cent share of its home city.

Club Orange is named after a gentlemen's club on which Dublin road?

Launched in the late 1930s as Ireland's first orange drink, its famous 'bits' are real juice vesicles that stay in the glass after the last sip.

Tanora, the fizzy drink beloved in Munster, is which flavour?

When Denis Irwin played for Manchester United his mother posted him bottles of it from Cork, and a 2011 reformulation was reversed after an outcry.

Cidona, the green-bottled Irish soft drink launched in 1955, is made from which fruit?

It was first made by the Bulmers cider works, and belongs to the family of mid-century Irish soft drinks still known locally as 'minerals'.

Irish breakfast tea blends are built on strong black tea from which Indian region?

The malty base is usually softened with a Kenyan leaf, and the leaves are lightly crushed so the brew steeps fast and dark enough to take milk.

Which everyday biscuit was invented in Dublin around 1885 and first made by William Jacob?

Joseph Haughton came up with it at home; the 'dock and prick' holes on top stop it puffing up in the oven.

Jacob's Mikado biscuit pairs marshmallow and coconut with which jam?

Its sibling Kimberley sandwiches mallow between ginger biscuits, and the chocolate-coated Mikado is sold as the Elite.

Gur cake, Dublin's slab of bakery leftovers, is named after children doing what?

Truants were 'gurriers' who were 'on the gur', and the cheap cake was all they could afford; 1940s Dubliners called the dense squares 'depth charges'.

What is 'goody', the Irish dish traditionally eaten beside St John's Eve bonfires?

It doubles as a sickbed food for children and convalescents, and a modern version adds cocoa powder and chocolate drops.

Yellowman, sold beside dulse at the Ould Lammas Fair, is a chewier cousin of which sweet?

The syrup is boiled to the 149 °C hard-crack stage, then vinegar and baking soda froth it up with carbon dioxide.

A traditional Limerick ham is first smoked over branches of which plant?

After an overnight soak, the ham is boiled in cider and then blasted in a hot oven to crisp the fat.

The red-skinned Rooster potato was bred in 1990 at a Teagasc research centre in which county?

Harry Kehoe's all-rounder took over Irish fields fast: by 2004 it was 38 per cent of the country's entire potato crop.

Comber Earlies, new potatoes with EU protected status since 2012, are grown in which county?

The town at the head of Strangford Lough celebrates them with a food festival every June, and was once also known for a whiskey last distilled in 1953.

Leo Burdock's, Dublin's oldest chipper, opened near Christ Church in which year?

Bella Burdock named it after her son, and in 1941 police found revolvers and grenades hidden in a pram at the family's Marrowbone Lane shop.

In Irish myth, the Salmon of Knowledge gained its wisdom by eating how many hazelnuts?

Young Fionn mac Cumhaill burnt his thumb while cooking the fish for the poet Finn Eces, sucked it, and got the lot in a single drop of fat.

Irish Mist, the first liqueur made in Ireland, was modelled on which ancient drink?

Commercial production began in Tullamore in 1947 with a recipe of aged whiskey, heather and clover honey and herbs claimed to be 1,000 years old.

Which trader served Queen Elizabeth II on her 2011 visit to Cork's English Market?

Pat O'Connell later served Prince Charles too; the 'English' label dates from the 19th century, to distinguish it from the nearby Irish Market.

The Dublin Bay prawn appears on restaurant menus under which other name?

It is really a slim coral-coloured lobster up to 25 cm long, and Irish boats land about 12 per cent of Europe's catch.

Clonakilty black pudding's secret spice recipe is still known only to which family?

It began in Edward Twomey's butcher shop on Pearse Street in the 1880s, and the town now has a visitor centre devoted to the pudding.

Milleens, the washed-rind cheese made near Eyeries since 1976, sells its small rounds as what?

Norman and Veronica Steele's cheese helped launch the Irish farmhouse revival and was Supreme Champion at the 1997 British Cheese Awards.

Flahavan's has milled its porridge oats in which village since about 1785?

The original mill was a watermill on the River Mahon, and the family firm still turns over close to €30 million a year.