Word: poteen
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...land losing its fertility and the fish forsaking the shore," the islanders went on potting lobsters, growing vegetables and grazing cattle. They were safe in the knowledge that their economy rested on another custom, the origin of which was also lost in the mists of antiquity: the manufacture of poteen illicit whisky...
...which the tubers were simply laid on the ground, covered with earth and left to grow by themselves. Many Irishmen were happy enough to restrict their diet to these easily grown roots and to spend their free time lying on hillsides thinking dark thoughts on the British and nipping poteen, which, as any schoolboy knows, is made from a potato mash. By the end of the 19th Century, said Dr. Salaman, the average Irishman was eating 14 Ibs. of spuds a day, his wife...