Recipes from Ireland

One of the many paradoxes which bloom as freely as the shamrock in its native land is this; that the coasts of the emerald isle are rich in seafood, but that the Irish people have on the whole been shy of consuming it. One has only to imagine what would happen on these coasts, if the people of, say, Singapore were suddenly transplanted thither, to realize the extent of this shyness. It is true that the Irish perceived the merits of the Dublin Bay prawn long before the Scots or English did. But they have continually neglected many of the crustaceans and molluscs which are equally accessible to them; they did so even during the time of the Great Famine. And they have a reserved attitude to most species of fish.