I see that the street hawkers are selling grape fruit in the streets nowadays. The fact speaks well for its growth in popularity.
The fruit was not always so popular. When it first came to Europe it was intensely disliked. It was brought from the East Indies and China, where it was originally grown by an Englishman, a Captain Shaddock, about the year 1810.
It was called "Shaddock" in England, but the name "grape fruit," bestowed in the United States, was adopted later, and seems to have clung. It belongs to the orange genus, but has large leaves and grows in clusters on the tree. From England it was taken to the West Indies and thence to the United States, where it became very popular. When in due course it came back across the Atlantic it was regarded as an American fruit, and it attained popularity that it did not enjoy on its first appearance in Europe.
Grape fruit is now grown all over the Western hemisphere, wherever the climate and soil are suitable. There is a tradition in the West Indian Islands that it was the forbidden fruit of the Bible.
The Irish Times, May 25th, 1931.