Which is a different sort of problem ~ but I think Irish independence solved that part.
The famine refugees were more likely from Germany and Scandinavia ~ which doesn't mean they weren't really Irish but they probably weren't.
Here's a recipe handed down. Take some meat ~ if you have meat. Chop it up. Chop a potato into slices. Put in a pan. Bring it to a boil. Wait until the slices are transluscent ~ about 2 or 3 minutes. Toss in the meat. Stir. Wait until brown or gray.
Serve hot. Feeds a small family.
No meat? Slice the potato thinner.
“No meat? Slice the potato thinner.”
I lived in Northern Ireland 78 - 81, and I am quite familiar with Irish history. I also had an experience that to this day sticks with me...
I went into my local butcher shop, the butcher knew me from numerous other visits...a week earlier I had him set aside a piece of beef loin so that it would age...then I came in to have it cut into four, very nice, thick Porterhouse steaks...
He asked me as he was cutting them...’Mr ____, is it expected that one of these steaks is to fead one person?’ I replied, ‘Yes’. He then said, ‘Over here one of those would feed a whole family.’
This is a long time after the famine, but the idea is still there in that culture. Food is precious. Then and now. The next war, here in this country, Revolutionary War II, will be touched off by a contrived crisis that cuts off supply of all of our daily needs.
“Still, a bit more than half the people in this country of Irish descent never had an ancestor arrive pursuant to the famine ~ they came earlier, or they came later.”
I can attest to that. My Irish ancestors headed for North America due to Oliver Cromwell. They were landed Irish gentry near Cork and he took their land. Must have been around 1650, details are scarce. I can find the family name, which is rare, on old landmarks on the Delmarva peninsula.
Black 48!