West Kerry’s first taste of the spud

SPRING is upon us and people are getting their potatoes ready for planting, and in doing so they will be following a tradition that goes right back to the first potatoes planted in Europe.

Walter Raleigh is credited with having introduced potatoes to Europe however it appears that spuds may have been growing in West Kerry before the rest of Europe ever saw them. How this came about is explained in an article by the Irish American columnist in the Kerryman, of May 18, 1907.

The article tells how Raleigh sent a ship from England to Virginia with 150 colonist on board. Things didn’t go very well after they arrived in the New World and Governor John White found it necessary to return to England for vital supplies.

He had a rough crossing of the Atlantic but on October, 16 1587, when “they had almost given up in despair, they sighted land which proved to be the coast of Kerry and “by the aid of “a hulke of Dublin they entered Smerwick Bay”.

The writer of the article pays a well-merited tribute to the inhabitants of Smerwick and Dingle for their timely and spontaneous aid. The crew of the ship and passengers stayed at Smerwick for over two weeks where Governor White distributed some potato plants among the people and the article notes these potatoes were “the first ever seen in Europe”.

The article goes on to say “It is generally supposed that it was Raleigh who first brought the potato plant to Europe, but according to White’s account, it was he who introduced it, and that it was the inhabitants of the County Kerry who were the first Europeans to taste the esculent tuber”.

Baile na nGall’s champion potato grower Seánín MacEoin told us the account in The Kerryman of 1907 could tie in with local ‘bealoideas’. He said the local version of events is that when the people of Baile na nGall and surrounding areas first encountered potatoes they tried to eat them raw and, finding them unpalatable, threw them on the dungheap, where they sprouted and grew into new plants.

Spuds have been with us since, although the favoured varieties have changed over time. A copy of The Kerryman from 1917 includes an advertisement from Latchford’s, which gives an indica tion of tastes at the time. The early seed potatoes at Latchford’s included Flounders, Pinks, Epicures, Early Rose Puritans and British Queens, while the late varieties were Champions, Irish Queen, and Ardcairn Beauties.