October, said the poet Dermot Healy, is “when memory / is released”. In bygone days, Ireland’s harvest season spanned between the ancient Celtic festivals of Lúnasa (1 August) and Samhain (1 November). But October was a vital month because, traditionally, this was when the potato crop was lifted out of the ground. But despite its deep association with the country, the potato was only introduced to Ireland during the 16th century. It then became a staple food thanks to its nutritional value and productivity – a single crop grown in a small plot of poor soil could feed a family for the better part of a year.
Strokestown House used to be the home of the local Anglo‑Irish landowner, whose tenant farmers relied on the potato crop. After a tour of the house, I walk to where a pasture’s broad sweep and mature trees betray its previous life as manicured parkland. While I watch the grazing cattle, a litany of potato varieties – kerr’s pink, golden wonder, maris piper – rises like an old chant in my mind. Yet until today’s tour, I’d never heard of the Irish lumper, the variety on which the 19th-century rural poor depended.
