My grandfather, Jim, grew potatoes in a field up the road from his house.
I remember him making the short journey down the bohareen, the little path, and around the bend in the road before arriving at the potato field to dig up and fill his sack with new potatoes, or spuds as we also call them.
Retracing his steps, he’d arrive back, sack full, and store them in the cupboard for when the potatoes were needed.
He loved his spuds. They accompanied every single dinner. He’d fill an aluminium pot with tap water which piped in directly from the well and place the potatoes inside, after scrubbing and washing the dirt and earth from them with a scrubbing brush.
He’d then place the pot onto his little hob in the back kitchen which looked out to the hill behind. That hill is called the Bean, which, when you climb it, gifts the most magnificent panoramic views of Dingle on one side and Ballyferriter on the other side, then all the way across the sea to South Kerry and beyond. Climbing The Bean was always on the list of activities during our childhood holidays….it still is!
The smell of the cooking potatoes filled the house with an earthen aroma that made my tummy rumble as my hunger grew more urgent. Playing outside in the fresh Kerry air seemed to make me very hungry as a child.
Once the skin of the potatoes would begin to crack open to reveal the fluffy white treat inside, we knew the cooking process was nearly over. Lifting the pot off the stove, my grandfather would then bring it over to the sink. Positioning himself squarely by that sink, he’d begin to tilt the pot and, using the lid to keep the contents inside the pot, he’d strain the boiling water, now a cloudy colour, from the pot. Once fully strained, he’d then tip the potatoes into the lid of the pot and shuffle his way down the hall and into the front room where the kitchen table was.
Placing the lid filled with spuds onto that kitchen table, this became the centre piece for all evening meals. I remember sitting and watching as he’d stick his fork into a spud and peel the skin from it, letting the skin drop back into the lid of the pot. Placing the peeled spud onto his plate, he’d lather it with salty yellow Irish butter and tuck in. Usually meat and veg would accompany the spuds, but for me, the spuds were the main event! Spud by spud he’d work his way through the pile with an ardent focus, until they were all eaten. I’m sure he’d devour 5-10 potatoes depending on their size. The fresh Kerry air made him hungry too!
It was like a process of pure magical alchemy. This important produce grown in the dark earthen womb of the rich nourishing West Kerry soil which then emerged into the divine light to be cleansed and washed by the holy well waters. This sack of potatoes would provide sustenance, vitamins and nourishment for the whole family.
I was home in Dublin last weekend. I visited EPIC which is the Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin with my mother and my son. I found it incredibly moving. The museum presented Irish history in a poignant and graceful way when parts of our history are far from graceful. It’s a museum that is about more than potatoes and yet, a large part of the focus is on just that, potatoes, in relation to The Irish Famine / An an Gorta Mór or The Great Hunger.
The museum gets “under the skin of what it really means to be Irish” according to the EPIC museum. It excels in doing just that.
This is something that I will write more about over the coming days / weeks. I plan to explore topics such as The Irish Famine; Soul Loss; Repressed Grief; The Colonial Mind; The Raw and The Reel (get it?!) as well as The Suppression of the Irish Language; The Penal Laws and how Irish eyes just keep on smiling through. I’m calling this series “Letters from Ireland”.
Despite the blight, I still love spuds. When I hold a potato in my hands and feel the caked mud from the earth; as I wash them in the Scottish water, I feel that connection to my ancestors. How they flourished and endured the good, the bad and all things Irish.
When I feed spuds to my children, they somehow aren’t as enthused as I am about this food source. However, I do make sure they understand the significant symbolism of this humble root vegetable within the heart breaking history and aching belly of every Irish soul.
With love / Le Grá,
Eimear xx
Written on 2 December 2022
PS: Checkout the EPIC Irish Emigration Museum website. It really is epic and packed with information. https://epicchq.com/
Top Photo: My son and me at the EPIC Museum last Friday. Taken by my mum. Grandfather Jim's daughter :).