Angie looked after my Dad when he was growing up, and when I first started going to school, she used to walk me home and give me lunch which was regularly Irish stew. Her Irish stew is legendary in the Skehan family, with my Dad’s five siblings and my eleven cousins all having been brought up on it. Angie always knew how to feed an army of hungry mouths, so I hope this version of her recipe does it justice!
Serves 6 
120 mins 2 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 lbs lamb shoulder, trimmed and cut into 1″ chunks
2 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
3 celery stalks, trimmed and sliced
1 bay leaf
4 large carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
4 cups beef or lamb stock
2 lbs potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/4″ slices
Good knob of butter
Sea salt and ground black pepper
Slices of white bread, to serve
2 tbsp rapeseed oil
1kg lamb shoulder, trimmed and cut into 2.5cm chunks
2 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
3 celery stalks, trimmed and sliced
1 bay leaf
4 large carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 litre beef or lamb stock
900g potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm slices
Good knob of butter
Sea salt and ground black pepper
Slices of white bread, to serve
Casserole pot
Rabbit was a great food for country people for many years. Tomás O’Crohan in The Islandman tells us of the many rabbits they caught on the Blasket islands when he was young: ‘When we had all come to the boat and put the game together, we had eight dozen rabbits – a dozen a-piece.’ Maurice o’Sullivan in Twenty years A-Growing writes of the same island and rabbit stew: ‘We sat down to dinner, a savoury dinner it was – a fine stew of rabbits and plenty of soup.’ Young rabbits can be roasted – as with the body of the hare – and wrapped in bacon. Recipe from The Pleasures of the Table: Rediscovering Theodora Fitzgibbon.
