Ireland's Green Larder by Margaret Hickey

Author:Margaret Hickey [Hickey, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783525263
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2018-02-13T16:00:00+00:00

A rosier picture is painted by Dr Massari, who was the secretary of Archbishop Rinuccini, Nuncio Extraordinary to the Confederation of Kilkenny in 1645. In a letter home, he reported that people were well nourished and the price of fish was noteworthy. ‘Butter is used abundantly. There is plenty of fruit: apples, pears, plums and artichokes. All foodstuffs are cheap. A fat bullock costs 16 shillings, a sheep one and three pence, a pair of fowls five pence, eggs four for a penny. A good-sized fish costs a penny. We bought a thousand pilchards or oysters for a shilling.’

The poor people fared more simply. Sir William Petty, a pioneer of the school of political economy, writing around this time states ‘Their food is bread in cakes, whereof a penny serves a week for each; potatoes from August till May, mussels, cockles and oysters near the sea, eggs and butter made very rancid by keeping it in bogs. As for flesh, they seldom eat it … ’

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