Irish Food Trivia
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99 free Irish Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Irish food is a lot more than corned beef and cabbage, which, as one of these questions explains, is really an Irish-American invention. This quiz covers the real table: soda bread and wheaten bread, colcannon and champ, coddle, boxty, crubeens and drisheen, the Ulster fry, the barmbrack ring, and the modern classics of the chicken fillet roll and the spice bag. The drinks get their due too: Guinness's 9,000-year lease, why Irish whiskey is usually distilled three times, how Baileys was invented in a London office, and which airport gets credit for Irish coffee. The questions range from easy (what makes soda bread rise) to hard (what luncheon meat Waterford people call 'red lead', which potato variety failed in 1845, and where the Twirl bar was invented). It works for a St Patrick's Day party round, a pub quiz, or a classroom unit on Irish culture. Every answer has been checked against a source and each question shows its citation and a short explanation once you answer.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Soda bread rises because baking soda reacts with the lactic acid in which ingredient?
Buttermilk
Buttermilk supplies the lactic acid that reacts with the bicarbonate of soda to release carbon dioxide, so the dough is mixed lightly and baked at once rather than kneaded.
Q 02What is soda bread made with raisins colloquially called in Ireland?
Spotted dog
Spotted dog is the everyday Irish name for white soda bread studded with raisins or sultanas; the same loaf is also called railway cake, and a caraway-seed version was once common.
Q 03In Ulster, the sweetened wholemeal variety of soda bread usually goes by what name?
Wheaten
Wheaten bread is the Ulster name for the brown wholemeal soda loaf, often lightly sweetened; further south the same loaf is simply called brown bread, and Ulster keeps 'soda bread' for the white kind.
Q 04Colcannon is a traditional dish on St Patrick's Day and on the feast day of which other Irish saint?
St Brigid
St Brigid's Day, 1 February, is the other feast traditionally marked with a dish of colcannon; the name comes from the Irish 'cál ceannann', meaning white-headed cabbage.
Q 05Champ is mashed potato mixed with butter, milk and which allium?
Scallions
Scallions, chopped and softened in warm milk, give champ its flavour; in some areas nettles were used instead, and 'as thick as champ' survives as a Hiberno-English insult.
Q 06On Samhain, a dish of champ with a spoon was left for the fairies under which tree?
A hawthorn
A hawthorn, the 'fairy thorn' of Irish folklore, was where the bowl of champ and its spoon were set out for the fairies on Halloween; the dish was also made with the first new potatoes of the harvest.
Q 07An old rhyme warns that if you can't make boxty, you'll never get a what?
Man
Man is the rhyme's payoff: 'Boxty on the griddle, boxty on the pan, if you can't make boxty, you'll never get a man'; boxty is the potato pancake of Leitrim, Cavan and Fermanagh.
Q 08Whatever the recipe, every version of boxty contains what?
Finely grated raw potato
Finely grated raw potato is the constant, whether the mix is fried as pancakes, baked as a loaf or boiled as dumplings; boiled boxty is a Halloween tradition around Cavan and Leitrim.
Q 09Which layered stew of sausages, rashers, potato and onion was reputedly a favourite of Jonathan Swift?
Coddle
Coddle, the Dublin stew of sausages, rashers, potatoes and onion simmered in stock, is reputed to have been a favourite of Jonathan Swift and also appears in the work of James Joyce.
Q 10Enthusiasts of the Dublin sausage-and-rasher stew regard which step as an unacceptable cop-out?
Browning the sausages
Browning the sausages is the cop-out: the true Dublin stew is simmered gently in stock so the sausages and rashers stay pale, a look outsiders often find off-putting.
Q 11Irish stew is traditionally made with root vegetables and which meat?
Lamb or mutton
Lamb or mutton is the traditional meat: sheep were kept for wool and milk, so older animals went into the stew and needed hours of slow simmering with potatoes and onions.
Q 12What is the Irish name for laver, the seaweed the Welsh make into laverbread?
Sloke
Sloke, from the Irish 'sleabhac', is the name for laver in Ireland, where the purple Porphyra seaweed is stewed slowly into a dark paste and eaten with butter, much as in Welsh laverbread.
Q 13According to Irish stew purists, which of these ingredients spoils the true dish?
Carrots
Carrots, along with turnips and pearl barley, are what purists say spoil the true flavour; their recipe is neck mutton chops, potatoes, onions and water, simmered slowly for hours.
Q 21In which year was Baileys Irish Cream first launched?
1974
1974 was the year Gilbeys of Ireland launched Baileys Irish Cream, the first Irish cream liqueur on the market, blending Irish whiskey with fresh dairy cream in a stable emulsion.
Q 22What is the declared alcohol content of Baileys Irish Cream?
17%
17% alcohol by volume is the declared strength of Baileys Irish Cream; the cream and whiskey are held together as an emulsion with refined vegetable oil, so no preservatives are needed.
Q 23Ornua, the co-operative behind Kerrygold butter, takes its name from Irish words meaning what?
New gold
New gold is the meaning of 'ór nua', the Irish phrase behind the name adopted in 2015 by the former Irish Dairy Board, founded in 1961, which markets Kerrygold.
Q 14Finding the ring in a Halloween barmbrack traditionally means what for the person who gets it?
They will marry within the year
'They will marry within the year' is the ring's promise; the pea meant no wedding that year, the stick a quarrelsome marriage and the coin riches, and shop-bought bracks keep only a toy ring.
Q 15What does 'bairín breac', the Irish name behind barmbrack, literally mean?
Speckled loaf
Speckled loaf is the literal meaning, the speckles being the sultanas and raisins, which most recipes soak overnight in cold tea or whiskey.
Q 16Chef Joe Sheridan invented Irish coffee in the early 1940s at which flying-boat terminal?
Foynes
Foynes, the flying-boat terminal on the Shannon estuary about 15 km from today's Shannon Airport, was where Sheridan warmed cold transatlantic passengers with whiskey-laced coffee; a museum there tells the story.
Q 17Which San Francisco bar began serving Irish coffee in 1952 after a travel writer brought the idea home?
Buena Vista Cafe
Buena Vista Cafe at Fisherman's Wharf began serving Irish coffee on 10 November 1952 after Chronicle columnist Stanton Delaplane, who had tasted it at Shannon, worked with owner Jack Koeppler to recreate it.
Q 18What was the first flavour of Tayto crisps, said to be the world's first seasoned crisp, in 1954?
Cheese & Onion
Cheese & Onion was the flavour Joe 'Spud' Murphy's Dublin firm launched in 1954, billed as the world's first seasoned crisp; earlier crisps came plain with a twist of salt in the bag.
Q 19Tayto's visitor attraction near Ashbourne, opened in 2010, was renamed what in 2023?
Emerald Park
Emerald Park became the name on 1 January 2023 when Tayto's sponsorship deal ended; the theme park and zoo near Ashbourne, County Meath, had opened as Tayto Park in 2010.
Q 20Baileys took its name from what?
A restaurant beneath its creators' London office
'A restaurant beneath its creators' London office' is the origin: Baileys Bistro sat under the team's office in Soho, and the R. A. Bailey signature on the label is fictional.
Q 24In which country was the Kerrygold brand first test-launched in October 1962?
England
England hosted the October 1962 test launch, in the Winter Hill television area of the north-west; Germany, now Kerrygold's biggest market, followed after Ireland joined the EEC in 1973.
Q 25The Limerick dish 'packet and tripe' pairs tripe with which gelatinous pudding?
Drisheen
Drisheen is the soft, gelatinous Munster pudding, like a very smooth black pudding set with milk, salt and fat, that goes with tripe in packet and tripe; it was once flavoured with tansy until that herb proved toxic.
Q 26What are crubeens?
Boiled pigs' trotters
Boiled pigs' trotters, from the Irish 'crúibín' meaning little hoof, were rural pub food eaten by hand like corn on the cob, and their saltiness conveniently made drinkers thirstier.
Q 27The blaa, a soft square white roll dusted with flour, is a speciality of which Irish city?
Waterford
Waterford is the home of the blaa, traditionally traced to Huguenot bakers who settled in the city in the 1690s; the roll won EU Protected Geographical Indication status in 2013.
Q 28A blaa is often filled with a luncheon meat that locals nickname what?
Red lead
Red lead is the local nickname for the pink luncheon sausage sliced into a blaa; the breakfast blaa with egg, rasher and sausage is the other favourite filling in the roll's home city.
Q 29Which takeaway dish did staff at Templeogue's Sunflower restaurant create off-menu around 2006?
Spice bag
Spice bag is the dish: salt-and-chilli chips and shredded fried chicken with sliced peppers and onion, shaken together in a paper bag, first served off-menu at the Sunflower in Templeogue.
Q 30Ireland's favourite deli food, sold in every petrol station, is a baguette filled with what?
A breaded chicken fillet
A breaded chicken fillet, sliced into a buttered baguette with lettuce and taco sauce, makes the chicken fillet roll, the deli-counter staple of Irish petrol stations and convenience shops.