Irish food carves out claim among Europe's best as local pride and international praise grow
The cuisine of Ireland has blossomed in recent decades like snowy white clover sprawling across its summer-green hills.
That same white clover yields gorgeous local honey, an age-old tradition now part of the Emerald Isle’s new era of taste-good feelings.
The Irish have rediscovered the bounty of fresh food growing, swimming and grazing all around them.
"We definitely feel now that our food culture has developed and now there’s just so mch pride in our native cuisine," Mark Murphy, the chef-owner of Dingle Cookery School in County Kerry, told Fox News Digital.
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"Whether it's the chefs or farmers or producers, they’re just looking at the food around us and going, ‘Yeah, that's ours!’"
Ireland’s sparse human population, large livestock herds, endless verdant grassland, small-farm tradition and vast waterfront, speckled with inlets, bays and rivers, make it a food lovers' paradise.
Crab claws sauteed in garlic butter with lemon wedges, O'Dowd's Seafood Bar and Restaurant, Roundstone, Connemara, Galway, Ireland. (Martin Thomas Photography/Alamy Stock Photo)
The world is taking notice of the Irish culinary ascendancy.
TripAdvisor named Dublin the fourth-best food city in Europe for 2023, behind only culinary heavyweights Paris, Florence and Rome.
Idyllic tourist destinations like Dingle, a colorful seaside village in far western Ireland, have also earned national and international notoriety for their robust hyper-local food scenes.
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The Little Cheese Shop is a delicious gem in the heart of Dingle. Dick Mack’s Pub, with its pastel blue façade, is acclaimed as one of the world’s best whiskey bars.
It doubles as a haberdashery.
Chef Mark Murphy is owner of the Dingle Cookery School in County Kerry, Ireland. (Courtesy Mark Murphy/Dingle Cookery School)
The weekly Dingle farmer’s market offers the best in local tastes each week, while the region has vibrant beekeeping and honey-making communities.
Murphy’s Dingle Cookery School teaches travelers from far and wide how to turn local flavors into restaurant-quality modern Irish dishes.
"Our food culture has really developed and now there’s just so mch pride in our native cuisine."
The chef/teacher singled out what he says are Ireland’s richest local flavors.
Irish lamb and beef, he said, is "naturally grass fed, we just take it for granted." The salty sea-breezes of Ireland soak the soil, feed the grass and impart meat raised in coastal communities with an especially savory flavor and mouthfeel.
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Ireland’s age-old dairy culture means "our butter and cheese are second to none," said Murphy.
Tastes of the ocean include everything from mackerel to tuna, plus crab and prawns. An increase in aquaculture provides seaweed and oysters.
A spring lamb walks past daffodils in a field in County Cavan on a sunny spring day. (Brian Lawless/PA Images via Getty Images)
Even Irish produce yields delicious surprises – most notably the Maharees carrots grown on the north side of the Dingle Peninsula.
"They have an, ‘Oh my God I can’t believe it’s a carrot!’ flavor," boasted Murphy.
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He estimates that about 80% of the overseas students at Dingle Cookery School are from the United States.
"They usually come here for a holiday or to see the landscape, the music or their ancestry," said Murphy.
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"But then they taste something here for the first time and you can just see the excitement in their eyes. They're like, 'wow, now we're on an Irish food journey.'"
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