AbroadNewsletter

‘Everyone missed chicken fillet rolls and spice bags... It was a eureka moment’- Irish staples on London’s food scene

This month Mark talks about life in Sweden; Patricia weighs up the benefits of returning to Ireland and Claire notices a lack of Friday after-work drinks in Munich

Emma Moran of Emerald Eats meets customer demand for her Irish food wares in London. Photograph: Kerb+

Tue Apr 30 2024 - 10:16

Welcome to the April edition of the Irish Times Abroad newsletter. To begin, Ross Hoey talks about how he has learned to speak without an Irish accent since he emigrated, even going as far as to “feel deeply ashamed of it”. Now living in London, Ross talks about an encounter in Bristol where he met an English fellah who told him “he was ‘more Irish’ than me because his grandmother was from Cork – pronounced without the ‘r’. The second was that ‘my people’ killed his grandfather, who was in the British army.” While Ross wiped away the remarks with a smile at the time he recognised the “rough snags of xenophobia” in this new country he was trying to call home.

Mark Duffy writes about his life in Sweden where he works as for an engineering company in the Nordics. “I never thought I’d be nearly 27 years in the same company but I’ve made great friends and colleagues down through the years.” He said “I also never really expected to move to Stockholm. I just went from one role into the next and progressed up the ladder. It was a great opportunity to get.” Moving in 2021, the work-life balance in Sweden suited Mark and his family’s lifestyle. Mark’s advice for the younger generation is to not to write off the option of doing an apprenticeship, something he does not think is talked about enough.

Claire Molloy talks about life in Germany after moving there with there with her future husband. “Daniel comes from Frankfurt but wanted to live somewhere very different. It’s hard not to like Munich. It’s a great place to work with a very nice lifestyle. It’s beautiful with an outdoor sunny vibe and fabulous beer gardens that give it more of a southern European feel.” Despite growing up in Bellmullet, Co Mayo, Claire settled into life in Germany through her love of the language in school and college. However, there are noticeable differences to Irish culture in Munich: “The Friday night after-work drinks doesn’t happen much here. People socialise with their friends or go home to their families.”

Patricia Morrison, a construction worker in London, talks about the factors pulling her back to Ireland, the main one being her family. If she wants to come home, she will have to deal with the current housing crisis in Ireland. She described a marketing campaign to entice Irish construction workers based overseas to come home as a “complete and utter waste of money”. “I’ve spoken to recruiters in Ireland who said I’d walk into a job in Dublin because of my experience in London, but Dublin just isn’t feasible. I couldn’t afford the rent,” she says. Patricia also has to balance creche waiting lists for her kids alongside finding somewhere to work – one of her daughters has been on a waiting list for nine months.

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Humble Irish staples such as the chicken roll and spice bags are becoming a sellout feature of London’s food scene. Emma Moran, from Dublin, moved to London 11 years ago and in October she set up a stall in Broadway Market. “We didn’t think it would be this mad,” Moran says, “It was something we spent hours talking about in the pub.” Her company, Emerald Eats, started making waves on TikTok so it wasn’t long before it was noticed by a wider audience. Moran says: “We make our own spice mix, and we do onions, red peppers and scallions. We have to do boxes because we trade at lunch and people take them back to the office rather than home to open up on to a plate after the pub.” Meanwhile, Laura Kennedy writes that people in Australia “have apparently not yet discovered the spice bag and my heart is broken for want of one”.

Fiadh Molloy talks about how her name can cause problems in Australia as she has never met another person of the same name. Her parent hail from Dublin and after moving to Australia in the early 2000s Fiadh’s name symbolises her connection with Ireland. “My parents tell me from the day I was born that they constantly had to explain the name to Australians. They were very confused about the ‘dh’.” Despite this Fiadh loves her name and the significance that comes with it “it is unique where I live and connects me to Ireland”.