The most notable stereotype of Irish cuisine is their love for potatoes. However, potatoes aren't indigenous to Ireland - they're not even indigenous to Europe! So how did they get there? And what made them so famous in the first place?
What we consider to be traditional foods of Ireland really only came about in the modern period, around the 17th century or so. Before then, the Irish diet was based largely on dairy products: milks, butter, curds, and whey. Cereals and flour were fairly rare as a staple up to the modern period, but the English conquerors (remember the Cromwell conquest?) changed that. Although the change was gradual, British colonists deforested, drained, and dried out many of the marshes to produce farmland.
Finally, the humble potato can now make its way as the new staple of the Irish diet. The potato offers many advantages. First of all, it is one of the only crops that can produce more calories than it takes to farm it. Furthermore, it is a winter crop and can be planted in a simple veggetable garden. Overtime, it replaced bread, gruel, and porridge, becoming an important agricultural crop that drove the whole island's economy. This was the food of the people.
Then everything changed when the famine (caused by water mold) ravaged the country. Approximately three-fourths of normal potato harvests were lost. Erin lost a multitude of her children - more than a million deaths (~16.5% of the population). The Connaucht region of Ireland (the accent that Teanga Bites is based on) what hit especially hard. The famine was also the cause of mass Irish emmigration, with around 2.5 million people leaving from 1845 to 1851.
Nowadays, Ireland is restoring its traditional Irish cuisine. Some recipes that use the potato are Irish stew, coddle, leek and potato pie, and potato bread!
To learn more about the changes of eating habits in Ireland, check out this article: https://journals.openedition.org/mimmoc/1733.