Vegan Ireland

[Barry]

I remember that bread well alright. I don't think it exists anymore, I haven't seen it in about 2-3 years. If it is out of production it's a pity as it was really nice bread.

On an unrelated note, I went to the George street Yamamori yesterday for lunch and it was deadly. About 4-5 meals were vegan (or could be veganised). I had the tofu steak, it was lovely although nothing like tofu steak I've had in other Japanese restaurants. The portion was enourmous, and I couldn't finish it (a rarity for me). The staff were great as well, no problems checking with the chef about ingredients. Two thumbs up!

[Barry]

So, been living in Dublin for a month as of today. The restaurants are great, so many really good vegan friendly places. The supermarkets/health food shops are rubbish though! It's so hard to find stuff like Fry's products and other vegan goodies. I was charged 2.60 for a tub of Pure in Nourish at the weekend, it's 95 cent in Galway!

[DavidT]

Barry

It's the same here - the better wholefood shop in town sold Pure Organic at €4.25 when the dreaded Tesco had it at €1.95! It's academic now that the line doesn't exist now but I did complain to the w/f people about it at the time. I'd much rather give my money to them than Trashco but you have to wonder what's going on.

And get this: Dove's Farm organic flour is €1.19 a kilo and has to travel hundreds of miles to get here. Ballybrado organic flour is €2.60 a kilo and comes from Tipperary, about fifty miles from me. :rolleyes: - just one more idiocy.

I'm a 101% ardent organic fan - thus while I am subsidising toxic pharming through my taxes, I'm also paying through the nose for organic stuff; there has to be a better way! Ireland is not cheap, food-wise and I would love to see more of this pasture/silage land given over to good home-produced food, despite the Doves Farm/Ballybrado anomaly.

[Barry]

he better wholefood shop in town sold Pure Organic at €4.25 when the dreaded Tesco had it at €1.95!

That is outrageous! You're right though, I'd still rather buy it there than in tesco.

[Barry]

So, opinions on Biffo 'Dutch Gold' Cowen?

[jibber]

Get the M+S own brand dairy free spread its €1.19! They have the Frys stuff in the Nourish on Wicklow St in town. Have you checked the food co-op out yet?

[Barry]

Get the M+S own brand dairy free spread its €1.19! They have the Frys stuff in the Nourish on Wicklow St in town. Have you checked the food co-op out yet?


You legend, I'm absolutely dying for a Fry's traditional burger!

The food co-op is on my list of things to do alright, I take it that it's worth a trip?

[jibber]

^ Yes, its a cool place to hang out on a Saturday morning with a coffee and brunch. They have food stalls where you can go and buy what you fancy then sit in the cafe scoffing it. On a Saturday they have organic fruit and veg farmers and you can get your staples in the grocery shop.

They do open Sundays now and have different markets on throughout the month. I am a member and also on the help rota so you might see me stocking the shelves one weekend!

[Barry]

Sounds really good, might take a trip out there this weekend. Say hello if you recognise me from my avatar.

[Barry]

Just back from Juice on George St., which proudly proclaims itself to be 'Dublin's only sit-down vegetarian restaurant'. The menu is great, with almost all the food being vegan friendly. We didn't have starters but went straight for the mains. I had mushroom and tofu wellington with mashed root veg, broccoli and red wine gravy, while Fiona had tofu and veg satay with brown rice. The first thing I'll say is that the food was delicious, no complaints there. My portion, however, was ridiculously tiny, more akin to a starter than anything else. I got two pieces of broccoli, two! That combined with the tiny portion of wellington and the one scoop of mash was simply not good enough, I was hungry dammit! Fiona's satay portion was perfect however, she actually couldn't finish it. Strange... Anyway, worth a look despite the portion size because the food was delicious. The mains were €12.50 each.

[Blueberries]

Heya I noticed that this thread hasn't been active for a while. I'm not living in Ireland at the moment but will be back later in the year, so if anything of vegan interest is happening, let me know!
Barry, I assume you've discovered that most supermarkets in Dublin now sell Pure spread, not just Tesco! Juice is really nice, I agree that the portions can be on the small side but I'm only wee myself so it doesn't bother me too much! Do they still have the veg fried rice with tempeh? That stuff is amazing! If you haven't found somewhere near you that sells Fry's stuff ask your local health food shop to order it in, I worked in a health food shop for a while, special orders are a pretty common occurance. Have you been to the co-op yet? I've never been, I really want to go when I get back, again it's just not in my part of the city. Also, the less said about Brian Cowen the better :hmm:

[Barry]

Hey Blueberries, finally got to grips with Dublin's tiny confusing health food shops alright! Where are you based these days anyway?

Juice still have that tempeh dish, I might give it a try on your recommendation, I've never been mad on tempeh though... Still haven't got down to the co-op, I've two weeks off starting on Sunday though and I've promised myself that I'm going to get there!

[Mercy]

Heh everyone. New here and thought I'd introduce myself here first as I'm from Dublin. :] Still adjusting to everything vegan so any recommendations for where to shop, or things to try would be appreciated! Thanks

[Barry]

Hey Mercy, good to see another Dublin based vegan here. Where to start! Blueberries is probably the best person to give you advice, seeing as she's from Dublin and she's worked in health food shops here. From my own perspective, after six months here, I find Dublin ok to be vegan in. It's fantastic for restaurants, there really is amazing choice - cornucopia, fresh, juice, and an endless number of Indian, Chinese, Italian places that you can check out.

I don't find it great for health food shops though, they're too small and too spread out, there is very little selection on offer and they're all hidiously over-priced. I had it too good in Galway, I lived beside the biggest health-food superstore in Ireland! Anyway, in Dublin your best bet is either the nourish chain or Down to Earth on George street. Apparantly the Co-op is great but I haven't made it there yet. I do most of my shopping in Tesco and in the Asian supermarkets on Capel Street.

There's loads more (probably better) info throughout this thread that you can look at, and I can post a more in-depth response for you later on, but unfortunately it's time for me to go get the bus to Maynooth!

[Mercy]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I didn't think about Indian and Chinese restaurants - do they label their menu's so you know what's vegan, or do you have to ask? I'm a bit shy about asking these things still as I don't know how people usually respond.

I've been into some health food shops and they do seem quite expensive. I'm in Galway from time to time so maybe I'll check out that shop you mentioned there and stock up :) I didn't know there was any alternative to the small places around Dublin.

Also hadn't thought of the Asian supermarkets either so thanks for all the recommendations!

I'll have a proper look through the thread soon too.

Again thanks for the reply :)

[Barry]

No worries. I wish Chinese and Indian places labelled their stuff vegan! A lot of veggie dishes in both types of restaurants are, or can be made, vegan. There's loads of info on that kind of stuff throughout this site. You'll have to get used to asking about ingredients in restaurants if you want to eat out, it really does become second nature very quickly, I used to be a bit shy too, not anymore!

That shop in Galway is called Evergreen and it's in the Galway Shopping Centre. I never fully appreciated how good it was til I left..

Any other questions don't hesitate to ask, although, like I said, Blueberries will be a lot more useful than me, I feel like I've just found my feet in Dublin recently.

p.s If you haven't eaten out yet, my first stop would be Cornucopia. It's affordable, delicious, and everthing is labelled as vegan. The veggie breakfasts are great and the potato salad is unreal!

[Barry]

Our beautiful country has, and will continue to be, overrun by extremists. Extremists of the right wing, I despair for us, we had a chance to change. Gene Kerrigan is far more succinct than I:

WE'VE just seen an election campaign that was virtually politics-free. It was all about polls and constituency profiles, the 'Gilmore Gale' and rehearsed soundbites, phoney 'plans' and meaningless slogans like 'Get Ireland back to work'. Yet, we are drowning as a result of politics. Bad politics. Politics that contrives to remain invisible behind the shadow boxing.
After the debacles of the past few years, how could the political establishment -- government and opposition -- have the nerve to continue in public life? The same question might be asked of their media cheerleaders and academic groupies. A train driver who did to a train what they did to the country would be forced to take up a new line of business.



The answer, of course, lies in the unswerving ability of the political right to erase uncomfortable facts from their records. They made mush of the economy; they then put the banks before the citizens; they sabotaged the real economy; they scapegoated the poorest. Each step was cheered by the groupies, and in turn each step made things worse.
After an election campaign that consisted largely of manufactured disagreements, we now dump Mr Nasal Congestion and welcome Five-Point Enda -- and the policies that are killing hope have new wind in their sails.



Erasing uncomfortable facts is done gradually. Have you noticed, for instance, how the Progressive Democrats are being airbrushed from history? Last week, Mary Hanafin boasted of Fianna Fail's ability to work within coalitions -- and she instanced their (relatively brief) partnerships with Labour and the Greens. Not a mention of the PDs, with whom she shared a cosy and disastrous coalition for a dozen years.
Last week the Irish Independent published a helpful supplement that listed the vote breakdown over 30 years -- and the PDs weren't featured. In tiny italic font at the bottom of the chart, we learned that the PDs are now anonymously lumped in under "Others".



Recently in this newspaper, ex-PD leader Michael McDowell called for the formation of a new party, once the election is out of the way. And Mickey Mac never once reminded us of -- oh, it's on the tip of my tongue, what's the name of the party he dumped unceremoniously when he lost his seat on election night in 2007? From 1997 onwards, there was an unmistakable surge to the right in Irish politics, culminating in the blast of right-wing policies that inflated the credit bubble from around 2000 and led directly to the collapse of the economy. It was a huge right-wing development grounded in a neo-liberal philosophy fashionable elsewhere. It will have consequences for generations. Instead of recognising this, the media went along with the fiction that Ireland has a left wing but no right wing.



The PDs came, wrecked the joint, then disappeared into the past, with their bloated pensions. Their right-wing extremism was eagerly soaked up within FF and FG. Rather than admit to applying, with disastrous results, a coherent set of right-wing principles -- the establishment now glosses things over. They use phrases like "mistakes were made" and, "we got some things wrong". The pretence is that they were merely a bunch of happy-go-lucky folks who just did what they thought was right at the time.
No matter how extremist their right-wing policies are, these parties are portrayed as "the centre". Anything outside is alien, disruptive, loony. Meaningful debate is sidelined, this is "the only game in town".
Here's a question that could have been asked of Mr Nasal Congestion, Brian Bailout or Five-Point Enda at any time over the past couple of years: "It was doctrinaire right-wing policies that collapsed the economy -- what makes you believe that your current right-wing solutions won't make things worse?"



Not a chance that question would be asked. Even though, at every stage of this crisis, the off-the-peg right-wing policies prescribed by the two Brians, in consultation with their EU masters, have indeed made things measurably worse.
The media can routinely -- and accurately -- refer to the "left-wing sensibilities" of people like Joe Higgins and Richard Boyd Barrett. Nothing wrong with that. But broadcasters and writers would be admonished if they routinely referred to FF or FG's "right-wing sensibilities".
This is not an accident.
Joe Higgins is in the Socialist Party. The name is on the tin. A whole lot of people are in the United Left Alliance -- you know where they stand. Ditto the Workers' Party. The Greens or even Labour give a hint of an ideological complexion. But the right-wing policies of McCreevy, Ahern, Kenny and Varadkar come clothed in party names drawn from a semi-mystical Gaelic past.



When Michael McDowell and his fellow rightists formed a party in the Eighties, they might have called themselves the Free Market Extremists. Instead, they were the Progressive Democrats. (Everyone wants progress, everyone needs democracy.)



Notions of populist nationalism -- beloved of old FF -- were swept away by the apparent success of the Celtic Tiger period. A generation of politicians eagerly adopted half-baked and wholly-swallowed right-wing platitudes -- chop the tax base, privatise, deregulate, unleash the rich. They sucked relentlessly on these ideological soothers, regardless of circumstance or outcome.
Listen to Simon Coveney, agog at the prospect of getting into government, aching to try out his right-wing bromides on the transport system. He sounds like a child who has spent too long playing at DIY, with rubber hammers and plastic saws. Now, God help us, he's about to be let loose with an array of power tools.



His earnestness is reminiscent of that of Mary Harney, full of good intentions and right-wing claptrap, as she set forth to consolidate the two-tier health service. Fine Gael is awash with this new breed -- about to engage in another grotesque experiment, putting into practice the set of assumptions and prescriptions they picked up at business school lectures and the dinner parties of wealthy patrons.
And the unwritten ban on putting those assumptions and proscriptions into context allows them all to pretend that there's no connection between the policies that caused the debacle, and the policies that made it worse over the past two years. And certainly no connection to the policies to come from Five-Point Enda and Weak Breeze Gilmore.



The left didn't help. When the media demanded, "But, where will we get the money", the left tried to answer in those terms, as though we're faced with a knotty little accounting problem. There is no answer to that question, as long as we're unwilling to confront the realities of wealth and inequality, of dead banks and the relationship between this little bit of an economy and the brutal right-wing policies dictated by panicky EU mandarins.
We stumbled uncertainly out of the Age of Ahern, gasped in disbelief through every development of the Cowen Chapter. Now, we nervously enter the Enda Era. The faces change, but the dread-laden establishment's faith in those right-wing assumptions and proscriptions remains as strong as ever, even as the debacle deepens.



And those assumptions and proscriptions, largely unremarked and unacknowledged, concealing their extremism in centrist language, drastically limit our options. Oh, no, giving billions to banks isn't extremist! We just want to boost freedom, and enterprise and nice stuff like that!
Cue Kevin Spacey, at the end of the movie The Usual Suspects: "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."


For Shame Ireland. For shame.

[Barry]

The answer, of course, lies in the unswerving ability of the political right to erase uncomfortable facts from their records. They made mush of the economy; they then put the banks before the citizens; they sabotaged the real economy; they scapegoated the poorest. Each step was cheered by the groupies, and in turn each step made things worse.
The PDs came, wrecked the joint, then disappeared into the past, with their bloated pensions. Their right-wing extremism was eagerly soaked up within FF and FG
is earnestness is reminiscent of that of Mary Harney, full of good intentions and right-wing claptrap, as she set forth to consolidate the two-tier health service. Fine Gael is awash with this new breed -- about to engage in another grotesque experiment, putting into practice the set of assumptions and prescriptions they picked up at business school lectures and the dinner parties of wealthy patrons.
there was an unmistakable surge to the right in Irish politics, culminating in the blast of right-wing policies that inflated the credit bubble from around 2000 and led directly to the collapse of the economy.

It was doctrinaire right-wing policies that collapsed the economy
For those who couldn't be arsed reading the whole thing.

[DavidT]

No need for a summary, Barry, I read the whole thing and, while you're more eloquent than I, you're saying what I'm feeling.

How could the Irish make such a mistake? Tweedledum was bad enough, but are the electorate so daft as to not see what Tweedledumber are all about? I didn't think so, but now I'm wondering.

The most sensible (from a policy point of view) 'coalition' now would be Fine Gael and Fianna Fail! What policy difference is there between the two, apart from degree?

[Barry]

Sorry, I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here. I'm just pissed off.


The most sensible (from a policy point of view) 'coalition' now would be Fine Gael and Fianna Fail! What policy difference is there between the two, apart from degree?

Zero as far as I can see.

[Blueberries]

Hey Blueberries, finally got to grips with Dublin's tiny confusing health food shops alright! Where are you based these days anyway?

Juice still have that tempeh dish, I might give it a try on your recommendation

I'm living in Barcalona at the moment, there's a really good vegan scene out here and I can get vital wheat gluten :D
But yeah, do try it if you're near Juice. I'm not the world's biggest tempeh fan either, but when it's cooked right it's great!

[cheerip]

Hey everyone. Anyone have suggestions for vegan makeup I can buy in Dublin? I'd need to be able to try it first. Just looking for a foundation.

[Blueberries]

Hey everyone. Anyone have suggestions for vegan makeup I can buy in Dublin? I'd need to be able to try it first. Just looking for a foundation.

Here's the link to the Irish vegan Society's cosmetics page :D http://veganireland.vegaplanet.org/cosmetics.php
(http://veganireland.vegaplanet.org/cosmetics.php)
Barry M is available in Boots or Superdrug, Urban Decay I'd say you could get in Arnotts or Debenhams and if you're in the city you should try the Nourish on Liffey Street, they have a good selection of cosmetics.



(http://veganireland.vegaplanet.org/cosmetics.php)

[DavidT]

Just to let you know that we have a 'pot luck' evening the first Thursday in each month hosted by ClareVegGroup here in the Banner county of Clare, way beyond the Pale.

Everybody is welcome. Yes, everybody; the food's not restricted to vegans and vegetarians! Actually the food people bring nearly always turns out to be vegan.

Everyone who has attended so far has a different viewpoint on veg*nism but the emphasis is on good food, chat and getting to know new friends. It's good fun too.

Anyone who wants to come along and/or contribute, stay in touch with vegalicious (http://clareveggroup.blogspot.com/). The venue changes most months.

[kaybee]

(mods feel free to remove this post if its not allowed)

hey, we are trying to network and get vegan FB pages up for each county in ireland so we can try to connect vegans with other vegans here and organize some concrete advocacy/activism, so please join us! It seems we are sparse here in this country and many of us feeling isolated from any sort of concrete face-to-face interactions with other vegans, so we are trying to rectify that :)

thanks

kaybee