Arrow@TU Dublin

This paper examines the role of printed fast-day sermons in England during the subsistence crises of 1795–1817, arguing that the pulpit functioned as a key interpretive space for understanding food scarcity. Delivered during nationally proclaimed fasts and widely circulated in print, these sermons framed dearth not only as a social problem but as a moral and providential crisis. Preachers such as…

Cookbooks published at a time of armed conflict contain practical advice on managing food shortages paired with patriotic nationalistic zeal. This paper examines the advice given to Irish households on cookery and household management in the pages of cookbooks and pamphlets published between 1939 and 1945, a period of political, economic and food supply upheaval colloquially referred to as The Em…

The climate crisis brings rising global temperatures, extreme weather events, and biodiversity loss. At its root lies what and how we eat. Food systems, especially those dominated by industrial meat and dairy production, are among the most significant drivers of greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, species extinction, and the depletion of freshwater resources. Therefore, a transformation of d…

“La boucherie de quartier” is a Cajun phrase referring to a neighbourhood pig slaughter. One such annual event, the Lâche Pas Boucherie in southern Louisiana, brings multiple generations and many traditions together with the goal of sharing and celebrating music, food and culture. Boudin, crackling, andouille sausage, and hogshead cheese are but a few of the unique offerings from this melting po…

The contemporary crisis of industrial meat is typically framed in environmental, ethical, or technological terms. This paper argues instead that the crisis is fundamentally epistemic, exposing the conceptual limits of modern food systems organized around abstraction, purification, efficiency, and control. Drawing on critical theories of modernity, political ecology, and design, it reframes meat n…

Mutual aid and charity groups often pay attention to the tangible results of their work for the groups serviced but too often ignore the benefits of the work to the workers themselves. Using the experience of the People’s Kitchen in Philadelphia, the author details the diversity of experiences of kitchen workers and some of the benefits of volunteering. Methodology uses surveys and self- ethnolog…

The outbreak of the WWII severely disrupted Mediterranean maritime transport, curtailing the inflow of foodstuffs and processed commodities to small import- dependent economies. This paper examines British Cyprus as a case study, arguing that wartime supply chain crisis prompted both policy and entrepreneurial shifts that not only safeguarded subsistence, but also laid foundations for postwar dev…

This paper examines how public food and drink spaces in early twentieth-century Malabar functioned as critical infrastructures of everyday subsistence as well as sociability. It argues that toddy shops, beyond sites of intoxication, might have provided low-cost nutrition, informal credit, and cross-caste interaction for segments of the labouring poor. Colonial excise policies and temperance movem…

Across a range of countries, pubs and cognate drinking venues are shrinking in number and being reimagined in function. This paper examines the contemporary “pub crisis” in Ireland, Britain, Hungary, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands and Australia, drawing on academic, policy, media and industry materials gathered during late 2025 and early 2026. It argues that, despite different national histo…

One crisis we currently face is the rising incidence of diabetes worldwide, arguably due to the inclusion of sugar, in one form or another, in nearly all processed foods. Superman and Coca Cola, two symbols prominent in the American cultural landscape, suggest an association of sugar consumption and power. Indeed, sweetness appeals to us both as a taste and as a concept, and sugar, accordingly, i…

As German submarines targeted merchant ships bringing food to Britain in the Second World War, home production had to be increased. During this period, the government maintained a condition of “total war,” that is, everyone was required to contribute to keeping the country going and to achieving victory. According to the historian Guy de la Bédoyère, “the British people experienced unprecedente…

It is commonplace to debunk the tale of Saint Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland: zoologists say he could not have done so, as there were no snakes in Ireland during his time. This tale is, however, a myth, and quite true if one views it symbolically. The snakes symbolise pagan beliefs and Patrick symbolises Catholic teachings, which, starting in the fifth century A.D. with Patrick as a ke…

Japan is a country with hundreds of food products and traditions tied to regional pride and identity. However, rising temperatures and extreme weather patterns attributed to climate change have caused unstable, decreasing, and lower-quality yields of many foods in regions where these have traditionally thrived or been sourced, thereby threatening the continuity and very existence of regional heri…

Fresh blood black pudding is one of the oldest foods of Ireland, yet rapidly declining access to fresh animal blood means this is a food under threat of extinction. Underpinning this crisis is the shuttering of abattoirs capable or willing to collect blood at slaughter. However, this is a crisis hidden from view of the consumer as proliferation of cheap mass-made puddings reliant on imported drie…

This paper draws out the tension between the well-fed leadership of the 1798 rebellion versus reports of hungry reality for poorer rebels. Readers of the unabridged diaries of Theobald Wolfe Tone must be struck by how often the man talks about what he ate, when he ate it and who he ate it with. Emerging from the coffee houses and dining clubs of Dublin and Belfast, the prosperous members of the p…

The study explores the historical formation of Izmir as a port city shaped by waves of migration, examining how these dynamics contributed to the emergence of a hybrid culinary culture. The present study draws on historical sources and literature on migration to trace Izmir’s transformation from a small Ottoman settlement to a cosmopolitan Mediterranean city. The study highlights the role of dias…

Official Closing Topic for 2028 - chosen by symposiasts - Elaine Mahon and Anke Klitzing Closing Remarks - Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire

Nuances of ancient life choices do not leave traces that can be excavated and quantified. Even with written language, not all thoughts made it to tablet, and not all tablets survive. What archaeologists can see from millennia past are points of intense change, sometimes resulting from crisis. People cope with crisis through traditions and rituals designed to help them transition through the uphea…

The 2022 invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation under Putin marks a pivotal moment in the cultural history of Eastern Europe. Russian aggression is driven in part by the longstanding Russian imperial project to subsume Ukrainian culture as part of the Russian grand narrative of civilizational unity. This ambition is made explicit in Putin’s 2021 speech “On the Historical Unity of Russians …

Manual hop-picking during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries represented far more than a form of agricultural labour; it constituted a significant seasonal activity that connected urban working-class communities with rural economies. In the hop-growing regions of Kent, in particular, hop-picking developed into an important cultural tradition that served simultaneously as seasonal e…