Introduction
This chapter explores the development of dining in Ireland from the reign of Elizabeth I to the Act of Union, taking particular cognisance to the growth of public dining in inns, hotels, taverns, coffeehouses and later clubs, principally in Dublin. In the reign of Henry VIII, Ireland became a sister kingdom of England with the same king but a separate parliament (McCartney 1987:2). The sovereigns of the house of Tudor managed to complete the conquest of Ireland bringing the whole island under the control of a central English government (Hayes-McCoy 1990:174). This conquest may have remained complete had it not been for the schism of Christendom that precipitated a century and half of dynastic and religious conflict. The failure of James II to regain his throne ended the struggle and was followed by nearly a century of peace, probably the longest Ireland has ever known (Green 1990:263-4). It was during this period that much of the uniformity of street and squares that give Dublin most of its character were executed, many through to The Commissioners for Making Wide and Convenient Streets, which formed in 1757 (Guinness 1988:10). This was a time of population growth indirectly due to peace and directly to the adoption of a potato diet which assured the Irish people of an abundant healthful ideal food, particularly when supplemented by milk (Green 1990:265).
The Dublin Castle complex took on the character of a court of a Renaissance viceroy rather than the quarters of a military commander between 1556 and 1570 when Sir Henry Sidney converted it on becoming the first viceroy to reside there. Much of the fashion in food during this period, as noted in Volume I, originated in the court and were copied by the nobility. The battle of the Boyne marked the beginning of the reign of a powerful ascendancy which controlled Irish affairs in England’s interest until the Act of Union in 1800 (Robins 2001:3-5). Many of the Ascendancy families led indulgent hedonistic lifestyles, building large richly furnished houses with ornate gardens, and life, for their women in particular, was ‘a constant round of pleasure’ (Robins 2001:6). Dublin had a
population of around 10,000 at the beginning of the seventeenth century, doubling in mid century, and by 1710 Dublin was the fourth largest city in Europe (Gibney 2006:17). The importance of Dublin was at its peak in around 1800, with a population of 200,000 – roughly twenty three percent the population of London. By 1900, whereas the population of Dublin had doubled, it’s population was a mere five and half percent of London’s (Craig 1980:341).
Potatoes were not the only new food introduced during this period and as the diet of the poorer classes gradually became more monotonous and one dimensional over time, the diet of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy became more elaborate with exotic fruits such as pineapples grown in Irish glasshouses becoming the ultimate mark of social status (Cahill 2005:50). The introduction of tea, coffee, and chocolate resulted in the opening of coffee houses, and later clubs, both in Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland. This development mirrors that of London during the same period as described in Chapter Five, Volume I, where some taverns, clubs and private hotels became renowned for the quality of their food.
Historic Outline
Much of the historic outline of this period has been discussed in Chapter Four and Five, Volume I. The following may be described as the micro-historic outline of how English and European history affected Ireland. The close of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century witnessed the end of Gaelic Ireland. By the end of Elizabeth I reign, the conquest of Ireland was complete, and the whole island was brought under English control (Hayes-McCoy 1990:174). Plantations had occurred in parts of Munster, Offaly, Laois, Antrim and Down during the sixteenth century. Following Hugh O’Neill’s defeat in the Battle of Kinsale 1601, and despite signing the peace treaty at Mellifont in 1603, the remaining Gaelic lords felt threatened by the new order and finally fled to the continent in 1607 in what is known as ‘the flight of the Earls’. This exodus led to the widespread plantation of Ulster between 1605-20 (Lennon and Gillespie 1997:58- 62). The mid seventeenth century saw Phelim O’Neill’s rising of 1641 followed by Cromwellian involvement in Ireland, which led to further land confiscations where the remaining Gaelic Irish were driven west to Connacht. The 1650s also saw the
development of Trinity College, improvements in the legal system and the abolition of the Irish parliament, replaced by representation at Westminster (Lennon and Gillespie 1997:64-6).
Charles II was proclaimed king in Dublin in May 1660. His successor James II came to throne in 1685, but three years later William of Orange ceased the crown. James II landed in Ireland with French support in March 1689 and held the ‘patriot parliament’ in Dublin from May-July of that year. This led to the Williamite War where James was defeated at the Boyne in 1690 and fled to France while William pushed his campaign west culminating in the signing of the treaty of Limerick in October 1691 (Lennon and Gillespie 1997:68).
British policy in Ireland aimed at maintaining the connection but ensuring that Ireland could not compete with the mother country in matters of trade. This status of colony was resented by Irish members of parliament, but were concentrating mainly in keeping the majority Catholics ‘in a state of permanent subjection’ (Wall 1990:218). The penal laws debarred Catholics from parliament, from holding any government office, from entering the legal profession, and from holding commissions in the army and the navy. By 1738, the penal laws had forced over one thousand families ‘of the highest order’ (including great numbers of barristers and lawyers) to nominally become protestant in order to retain their lands, and were thus ‘recruited into the Anglo-Irish ascendancy’ (Wall 1990:219). The Anglo-Irishman, writes Mortimer (1988:194), ‘never feels at ease in England, even though he is not always and altogether accepted in his own country’. The Anglo-Irish became a unique people, considered Irish by the English and English by the Irish. Even the descendants of the later colonists yielded to the ‘cult of hospitality’ by the eighteenth century (Simms 1978:93-4).
From 1767, lord lieutenants took up full-time residency in Ireland resulting in the Irish court reaching its peak of brilliance and extravagance during the last three decades of the century (Robins 2001:57). The 1st Earl of Harcourt had served as court chamberlain in St. James’ and as ambassador in Paris prior to taking residence in Dublin (1772-1776). He
was a man of immense personal wealth who gave and expected extravagant hospitality (Robins 2001:61-2). The Rutland viceroyalty (1784-1787) was renowned for its hedonism, where the political tensions faded temporarily as ‘the powerful and dissident were drawn into the court’s never-ending round of eating, dancing and unfettered living’ (Robins 2001:69-70).
In the latter half of the eighteenth century, influenced by the war of American independence, the Protestant Anglo-Irish, under the leadership of Henry Grattan, achieved a form of independent kingdom, sharing a monarch with the neighbouring island. An Irish post system separate from that of Great Britain was established. The Bank of Ireland was founded and great building projects were undertaken, such as the Customs House, Four Courts, and the completion of both Rutland and Merrion Squares that transformed Dublin into a capital city (McDowell 1990:233-4; Dargan 2008).
Apart from the legislative independence period of 1782-1800, the Irish parliament remained, in practice, inferior to the English parliament. Splendid conviviality was no longer the answer to Ireland’s problems, political or social by the 1790s, and by the time the 2nd Earl of Fitzwilliam took office in 1794 ‘the golden age of the Ascendancy society had come to an end’ (Robins 2001:78). Inspired by the French Revolution of 1789, the United Irishmen was established by Wolfe Tone to unite Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter to break the connection with England. Bad weather hampered the large-scale invasion of French forces in 1796 and the failure of the 1798 Rebellion meant that the century ended not with the declaration of the republic as sought by the radicals, but with a legislative union (Kelly 1997:82). The coming into force of the Act of Union on January 1st 1801 abolished the separate Irish parliament and established direct rule from Westminster, integrating the two islands constitutionally under the official title of ‘The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’ (McCartney 1987:3; Kelly 1997:74).
Sources of Evidence
The lack of a comprehensive authoritative study on the history of Irish cuisine has led to the pervasive, but erroneous, belief that Ireland lacks a distinctive cuisine or a tradition of
public dining (Cotter 1999; Myers 2002). Cullen (1981:140-192) provides the first broad discussion on diet, hospitality and menu variety during this period. Cullen (1992) compares various aspects of Irish diets – both rich and poor – and contrasts them with diets elsewhere in Europe. Much has been written about the potato in Ireland and its effect on increasing population, decreasing diversity and impoverishing Irish cuisine to a rudimentary art (Connell 1962; Cullen 1981:141-2; Bourke 1993; Ó Gráda 1993; Salaman 2000; Ó Riordáin 2001). A parallel Anglo-Irish cuisine existed among the protestant elite. Evidence of what was consumed in these wealthier households can be ascertained by the various household account books, such as the Connolly’s of Castletown House; the Plunkett family, Earls of Fingall; or the Balfour family of Townley Hall near Drogheda, used by social and nutritional historians (Clarkson and Crawford 2001:34; Barnard 2004). One problem with household account books is they don’t include foodstuff, such as fruit and vegetables, or dairy produce that was grown or produced on the mainly self-sufficient estates, or indeed food rents or presents such as venison or rabbits that supplemented the diet of the upper classes.
The dining and entertaining practices of the Irish Vice-regal Court at Dublin Castle are outlined by Robins (2001). Probably the most descriptive accounts of the daily food habits of the upper classes come from the letters of Mrs. Delany (Fig. 11.0) written from her various houses in Dublin, Down and London during many decades of the mid to late eighteenth century (Johnson 1925; Maxwell 1979a; Hayden 2000; Cahill 2005; Cahill 2007). Her letters discuss the lives of servants and their role in running a large household. Other sources of evidence include the descriptions of travellers to Ireland or temporary residents such as Spencer, De Ceullar, Deveraux and Moryson in Elizabethan Ireland; Brereton, Rocheford, Dineley, Stevens and Dunton in the seventeenth century; and Delany, Young, Gandon, Pococke, and De La Tocayne in the eighteenth century (Maxwell 1979a; Sexton 1998). Food and dining are also depicted in art. Both Laffan (2003) and Rooney (2006) provide pictorial evidence of what food was sold on the streets of Dublin in the mid-Eighteenth century, and the various social establishment – taverns, clubs and inns – where food was publicly consumed respectively. Clarkson and Crawford’s (2001:8) history of food and nutrition in Ireland is the most comprehensive
book covering this period, but they are at pains to point out that their book ‘is not a history of cooking in Ireland’. The authors who have dealt most comprehensively with the history of Irish food to date are Mahon (1991) and Sexton (1998; 2005).
Figure 11.0: Portrait of Mrs. Delany by John Opie Source: (Hayden 2000:2)
Food and Sources
By the fourteenth century there was a fusion of Gaelic Irish and Anglo-Norman food patterns. Cullen (1992:47) suggests that Irish diets prior to the introduction of the potato were retarded reflecting a medieval backwardness rather than poverty in the modern sense. Cullen points out that quite an amount of meat was consumed in the earlier Irish diet, noting that Irish soldiers fighting in France in 1689 were renowned for their butchery skills. Culinary innovation and change followed the Tudor and Stuart conquests of the 16th and 17th centuries, with the introduction of the pheasant, turkey and most significantly the potato. Molloy (2002:35) argues that beer became a less important element of the diet of the rural poor following the introduction of the potato as an alternative source of carbohydrate and vitamin B.
The Potato
The potato was introduced to Europe from South America. Whether the introduction of the potato to Ireland can be credited to a Drake, Raleigh or Southwell figure; or that they
may have been washed ashore from wrecks of the Spanish Armada in 1588; it is clear that the potato had reached Ireland by the end of the sixteenth century (Sexton 1998:71; Salaman 2000:142-158). The potato transformed Ireland from an under populated island of 1 million in the 1590s to 8.2 million in 1840, making it the most densely populated country in Europe (Phillips and Rix 1995). Bourke (1993) mentions four phases of acceptance of the potato into the general Irish diet. Stage one (1590-1675) sees the potato used as a supplementary food and standby against famine; Stage two (1675-1750) the potato is viewed as a valuable winter food for the poorer classes; Stage three (1750-1810) the poorer classes became dangerously reliant on potato as staple for most of the year; Stage four (1810-1845) sees mounting distress as localised famines and potato failures become commonplace.
The potato was enjoyed by rich and poor alike, and Cullen (1992:46) points out that potatoes were imported from Ireland to the colonies and also suggests that Irish brandy merchants who settled in Cognac may have been the first to plant potatoes in the Charente region. Two centuries of genetic evolution resulted in yields growing from 2 tons per acre in 1670 to 10 tons per acre in 1800 (Mac Con Iomaire 2003:209). Lyons (1982:35) notes that the potato was useful for cleaning, restoring and reclaiming the soil, and also for fattening pigs. This point is elaborated by Cullen (1992:47), who suggests that increased potato consumption may simply and paradoxically reflect the fact that cereal cultivation intensified in the 1750s and 1760s, resulting in a growing reliance on the potato as a cleaning restoring root crop. The potato provided the growing labour force needed for the move from pasture to tillage that occurred at this time, but resulted in high levels of unemployment following the Battle of Waterloo when the demand for exports fell.
All Irish diets during this period were not dull and centred on the potato, dairy produce and occasional bacon or pickled herrings. Although Ireland was the first European country to adopt the potato as a staple crop – a practice spread to the colonies and to mainland Europe – European fashions in food and beverages also percolated Irish culinary practice.
Anglo-Irish Cuisine
Lady Essex was the first vicereine to entertain as a great hostess. James, Duke of Ormond, who succeeded Lord Essex (1672-1677) viceroyalty, is credited with creating a brilliant court by the time he left office in 1685 and setting patterns of exclusivity and hospitality that were carried on by his successors. Household records indicate sumptuous entertainment with over ‘six thousand gallons of French, Canary and Rhenish wines and large quantities of other alcohol’ consumed between May 1682 and September 1683 (Robins 2001:6). The Irish court at Dublin Castle followed the rituals and extravagances of the London court of St. James’ with balls, banquets, drawing-rooms, levees and elaborate festivities celebrating royal birthdays and other anniversaries (Robins 2001:7).
An Anglo-Irish gentry class emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with a rich and varied cuisine, influenced by the professional French chefs who had become a fashionable addition to their kitchens. Keeping a male cook was the height of sophistication, but a French cook carried extra cachet (Sexton 1998a:12; Barnard 2004:300; Cahill 2005:68). Profuse, even excessive, hospitality was the first distinctive quality credited to the protestant elite in Ireland in the mid eighteenth century. The second being philanthropy (Barnard 1999:66). Maxwell (1940:24) remarks on the ‘extraordinary hospitality’ of the Irish gentry and ‘the conviviality of their manners’ as the first thing to strike an English traveller in eighteenth century Ireland. Assuming thirty per cent of upper class incomes went on food and drink, Clarkson (1999:101-2) calculated a workforce of 168,000 brewers, butchers, bakers, millers, cooks, and dealers dedicated to the service of feeding the upper classes in 1770. Simms (1978:94-5) proposes that the ‘riotous hospitality’ of the eighteenth century Anglo-Irish was not imported from England where in 1752 Henry Fielding reported ‘acquaintance is of almost as slow growth as an oak’. Simms concludes that the narratives of eighteenth century English travellers in Ireland are closer to the Stanihurst (1584:33) account of the Gaelic Irish chieftains:
‘They have fixed manors and habitations, which are daily filled with a great throng of guests. They are without doubt the most hospitable of men, nor could you please them more in anything than by frequently visiting their houses willingly of your own accord, or claiming an invitation from them’.
Clarkson and Crawford (2001:35, 53), however, suggest that eating patterns among the upper classes in both Ireland and England had much in common – both high in meat consumption, and that the drunken reputation enjoyed by the eighteenth century Irish gentry was not always deserved. The short viceroyalty of the 4th Earl of Chesterfield in 1745 is said to have impacted on the manners and civility of Irish society more than any of his predecessors. The ‘pernicious and beastly fashion of drinking’ was discouraged, duels declined in number and both politeness and literature progressed (Robins 2001:27- 8). The second half of the century witnessed a relentless pursuit of style and cultivation of elegance and sophistication among Anglo-Irish society, which considered themselves equal to the wider brotherhood of European aristocracy. At a court ball in London in 1760, Lady Sarah Lennox told the Prince of Wales that the court balls in Dublin were far more enjoyable and frequent than those of St. James’ (Robins 2001:31-3).
New Ingredients
New culinary habits required new ingredients, many of which reached Europe from the New World. French Huguenot refugees brought expertise in practical horticulture, and introduced new vegetables to Ireland. A bill for seeds bought by Huguenots from The Hague includes among others ‘asparagus, radishes, tomatoes, sensitive plants, several sorts of lettuces and about 60 sorts of flower seed, lemon or citrus trees, mhirtle balls in pots and turnip seed’ (Lamb and Bowe 1995:26). Despite the failure of Le Projet d’Irlande to transplant thousands of displaced Huguenots to Ireland following the Williamite war, many Huguenots reached Ireland and thrived, most remarkably in Portarlington, but also in Dublin and elsewhere. The 280 strong Huguenot community in 1692 Dublin had swollen to 3,600 by 1720, evidence of which is still visible in the Huguenot cemetery beside Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel, St Stephen’s Green (Vigne 1994:21; Powell 1995:29; Gibney 2006:16). Clearly not all Huguenots were master weavers or silversmiths and some must have brought French culinary practice and techniques with them either professionally or through domestic practice.
Market gardeners were brought from Holland in 1694 to teach members of The Dublin Philosophical Society new techniques of growing fruit and vegetables. This new learning
was enthusiastically put to the test, although the relevance of broccoli, mulberries or silkworms in raising Irish rents has been questioned (Lamb and Bowe 1995:26; Barnard 2004:213). The Dublin Society was founded in 1731 and incorporated by George II as the ‘Dublin Society for promoting Husbandry and other useful Arts’ in 1749. Their Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin had a Kitchen Garden in which six apprentices were constantly employed ‘to advance the great benefits of this department’ (Wright 1821:61-4). As