Eating Vegan in Ireland

From curries and creamy risotto to mint chocolate and coconut ice cream, Ireland offers an array of vegan dishes, including comfort foods and sweet treats.

This summer I traveled to Ireland with only a few weeks of planning—after realizing how much I needed a period of extended rest and reset. When I began telling friends and family about the trip, responses went something like this:

You’re going to Ireland? That’s awesome! But what will you eat?”

The short answer is that, over the years, I’ve found it increasingly easy to eat vegan while traveling, and this was especially so in Ireland—and not only in cities. In rural areas, I could find tasty vegan meals like veggie burgers, soups, salads, curries, chili, and even tempura. In the photo above, I’m eating a homemade mounds bar (chocolate and coconut) in Dingle, Ireland (where I found lots of vegan + gluten-free treats). And, yes, as you might imagine, I ate so many potatoes!

I’ve been vegetarian for 20 years and vegan + gluten-free for more than 5, so I’m no stranger to figuring out what to eat with limited options. I typically travel with packets of oatmeal, tea, and miso soup; nut butter, raw cacao, and bananas; as well as olives, probar chews, larabars, and even baby food (pureed mixes of fruit and veggies).

While hiking in Ireland and Northern Ireland, I certainly ate these and other prepared foods, but I was deeply grateful for hearty breakfasts and warm dinners to make long days of walking possible.

Here’s a view into eating vegan in Ireland:

Breakfasts

Snacks

Main Meals

From a large vegan menu of Irish dishes at Darcy’s Belfast, these “bangers and mash” were my favorite. I had them twice (two different evenings), and now I’m wishing I could have them again:

So, why eat vegan?

As I attempt to highlight through this series “why vegan?” there are a lot of reasons for eating vegan—at home, when traveling, and as an everyday (small and sustained) practice.

In the midst of this week’s global climate strike, I’ve seen such divergent posts about veganism: from critiques leveraged at and from vegans to genuine questions and curiosity about how individual actions (like eating) fit into collective, systemic, significant responses to climate crisis.

Guided by principles like both/and, critique against and for, and ecofeminism, I believe it’s worth saying again that small-scale, individual actions play important roles within large-scale, collective responses *and* that small-scale, individual actions aren’t enough—and won’t be enough.

This is to say that eating vegan (in Ireland or elsewhere) isn’t enough to address the urgency of climate crisis and so much interlocking injustice—white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, settler-colonialism, speciesism, and much more. *And* eating vegan is still part of what’s needed for striving toward environmental justice, racial justice, social justice—today and everyday.

The day I arrived in Ireland, I encountered this protest in downtown Dublin—a public display, reminding me that we need dialogue and education alongside public outcry.

My goal is to continue working and writing across these communication modes—with this post highlighting some of the yummy foods and fun to be had by making the commitment to eat vegan. There’s much, much more to say and do, but here’s a small piece for now.

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This post is written by Beth Godbee, Ph.D. for Heart-Head-Hands.com. For related posts, you might try “Why I’m Vegan: Normalizing Plant-Based Options” and vegan + gluten-free recipes.

To invest in ongoing self-work and deep-diving into conditioned ways of living, being, and intervening in the world, check out the self-paced e-course, “40 Questions for 40 Walks: Toward Everyday Living for Justice.”

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