Sir, – I concur wholeheartedly with Donald Clarke’s views (“Putting garish leprechauns into a positive spin”, Opinion, March 16th). However, I have to ask – what is wrong with corned beef and cabbage on St Patrick’s Day? Personally, I prefer bacon (slowly cooked like my mother used to do it) and fresh cabbage cooked quickly.
Traditionally, because St Patrick’s Day always falls in Lent, the meal usually consisted of fish. Here is Amhlaoibh Ó Súilleabháin of Callan, Co. Kilkenny, writing in his diary, St Patrick’s Day, 1829 (translated from the original Irish):
“A merry group of us drank our Patrick’s Pot (Pota Pádraig) at the house of the parish priest ie Fr James Henebry. For dinner we had fresh cod’s head, soaked salted ling, dry-smoked salmon and fresh trout with a fragrant cheese and green cabbage. There was white wine and port wine and whiskey and plenty of scailtín” (a hot whiskey with sugar, milk and butter). – Yours, etc,
BRIAN MacCURTAIN,
Chapelizod Court,
Dublin 20.