Irish potato dishes

There are conflicting stories as to how potatoes got to Ireland in the mid-sixteenth century: some say that Sir Walter Raleigh introduced them, and others claim they were discovered in wrecks of Spanish Armada galleons. A popular folk song, ‘The Pratie [potato] Song’ even contains the lines:

However they got there, they have been a staple food of the country ever since and would be an important part of small and big-time farms, supporting families and the local community, as they were pretty easy to grow. The potato cultivation system was then known as the ‘lazy bed’ system, as it involved high raised beds that were easily accessible for harvest by hand without too much digging with a spade-like tool known as a ‘loy’ or ‘fack’. The soil would generally be enriched with manure from cows and pigs kept on the small farms; or in coastal regions, seaweed would be used, which gives the potatoes a really distinctive flavour, rather as with Jersey Royals.