Cúpla Focal
When I wrote a memoir about moving to Ireland, one of the copyeditor’s notes advised using the phrase “the Irish language” instead of just “Irish” for my glossary because, she said, many English-language readers won’t be aware that there’s an Irish language at all. Having lived in the west of Ireland, where the language revival is strongest, for nearly fourteen years now, that startled me. I hear Irish spoken every day, and my kid goes to a gaelscoil where he’s completely immersed in the language. If you find yourself in Ireland, it’s worth taking the time to learn at least cúpla focal: a few words.
Irish is the indigenous language of Ireland (don’t call it Gaelic!), one spoken by over half a million people every day. Since there’s a thriving local food culture to go with the local language, a culinary exploration of the west is a must for anyone planning a trip to Ireland. If you can, stop by my favourite local café here in Connemara, Pota (right next to the studios for TG4, the Irish-language TV station), and see if you can challenge yourself to order something off the menu in Irish—or at least end your order with “go raibh maith agat”: thank you.
Beacán: mushroom. (Not bacon!) The best meal I ever cooked was a lasagna made with wild Irish field mushrooms, foraged by my ex-husband, who had grown up here and knew exactly what to look for. I’m still cautious of picking wild mushrooms myself, aware of the adage that “there are old mushroom hunters, and there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters.” Still, if you can get a trusted source, wild Irish mushrooms are one of the best local foods you can try.
Feamainn: seaweed. Every kind of seaweed found on Irish shores is edible and it finds its way into everything from scones to soup to desserts. (My eight-year-old prefers just grabbing it out of the water and chowing down.)
Im: butter. Irish butter is rightly famous all over the world, and Irish dairy in general—milk, ice cream, cheese—is the richest, sweetest, and freshest I’ve ever had. In days gone by, butter was so plentiful here that they used it to preserve eggs for export: rubbing a warm, fresh-laid egg with a thin coat of butter creates a seal on the shell that can keep an egg fresh (and buttery-tasting!) for months. Sadly, this practice has nearly vanished, since it requires careful hand-buttering of an egg laid mere moments before, but the delicate richness of a “buttered egg” is in a class by itself.
Putóg dhubh: black pudding. A sliced-and-fried sausage made from oats and pig’s blood, black pudding might put off even carnivorous tourists at first, but it’s worth considering its history and place in Irish culture. A key part of the “full Irish” breakfast, black pudding has long been a way to make use of and preserve every possible part of a single pig that may have been a family’s sole meat source for an entire year—an effort motivated by both economic need and respect for the animal itself. I don’t regularly eat meat these days, but I consider black pudding one of the more ethical choices when I do. (It’s also mild and delicious, and several Irish doctors have recommended it for my anaemia.)
Shóid donn: brown bread. Called Irish soda bread in the U.S., this is a dense, tawny bread of the quick (not yeasted) variety, often studded with whole grains or seeds and scented with caraway. Ovens only came to most rural Irish homes in the last century, and traditional brown bread was baked over coals.
Sútha talún fiáin: wild strawberry. I live in a historic knitting factory in Connemara, and there are many things to love about this weird old house—but possibly my very favorite is how many wild strawberries grow in our garden. They’re far smaller and more intensely flavored than farmed strawberries, which forever taste sad and watery to me now. Wild strawberries are only the size of your pinkie nail, and they’re easy to miss, but an absolute prize when you find them, whether on the roadside or in the jam that comes with your café scone.
When you visit an Irish Gaeltacht—a region where the everyday language is Irish—the most important thing to keep in mind is that any effort to speak Irish is better than not trying at all. This is a language that nearly died while Ireland was under British occupation, and even many Irish people only speak a little bit now. If you’re willing to try, mistakes in pronunciation or grammar will be easily forgiven. After all, as the local saying goes,“is fearr Gaelge bhriste, ná Béarla cliste”: broken Irish is better than clever English.
Betsy Cornwell is a New York Times bestselling author of six novels and a memoir, Ring of Salt, for which she received a Markievicz Award from the Irish Arts Council and the first Blue Mountains (Australia) residency from the Irish Writers Centre. She teaches at the University of Galway and online, and is the founder of The Old Knitting Factory, a residency space for her fellow single parents in the west of Ireland.
