Introduction

Welcome to 1603. Baltimore, County of Cork, Southern Ireland.

QE 1

Hated Queen Elizabeth 1 has just died, and has been replaced by James 1st who has a slightly kinder predisposition towards the Irish. The Nine years war has just finished ending the uprising of the Irish Earls. England has a firm foothold in Ireland with the English holding all important positions in both country and town.

“Plantations” have started. This involves the confiscation of Irish ancestral land by the English crown and the colonization of this land with settlers from Britain.

Fifteen years ago (1588), the Spanish Armada’s failed invasion of England resulted in the wrecking of 24 of its 130 ships along the west coast of Ireland. Any surviving spaniards (and any Irish who dared to harbour them), were summarily rounded up and hanged by the English troops stationed in Ireland. Even now, the Irish are still finding the occasional piece of loot from these wrecks.

The plague pops up now and again all over Europe. Ireland is not exempt from this.

Shakespeare in full flight, writing his plays and sonnets, and will so for another 13 years.

Snaphance (pre-flintlock)

Soldiers are now armed with long muskets (carbines and rifles) instead of bow and sword. Short-barrelled muskets (“pistols”) are very rare. The flintlock has yet to be invented. They have the snaplock and the snaphance (an early flintlock) as well as the expensive (but very reliable) wheel-lock, and the mundane match-lock. The paper cartridge is the latest thing: a slug of gunpowder pre-wrapped, ready to be rammed.

Armour has reached its zenith, using excellent high-carbon metallurgy to make suits that will turn any blade. But a full suit of this plate costs a king’s ransom.

Witchcraft is rife throughout Europe, but strangely, not in Ireland. Maybe this is because fae magic abounds. In the woods and forests, and in the wilderness, live the sidhe (“she”), the fairy-folk, waiting to ensorcel the unwary traveller and bewitch him.

This is countered by the Church and her miracles. Most of Europe is still Roman Catholic, but it’s been almost a century since Martin Luther was excommunicated, and Protestantism has been growing since. Henry VIII started the (Anglican) Church of England sixty years ago, and the Church of Ireland soon after. However, Roman Catholicism still has a strong-hold in Ireland, and the Irish-speaking majority tend be faithful to the Latin liturgy. The English-speaking minority adhere to the Church of Ireland (Presbyterianism with Calvinist doctrine).

Much of the diet still revolves around dairy; people drank milk and buttermilk, ate fresh curds, and mixed whey with water to make a sour drink called “blaand.” Butter is flavoured with onion and garlic and buried it in bogs for storage (and flavour!).

The other primary food was grain, mostly oats, which was made into oatcakes and pottages (oat stew). Wheat, which was not easy to grow in Ireland (too wet), was mostly eaten by the rich. People supplemented their grains and milk with occasional meat and fish; grew cabbages, onions, garlic, and parsnips; and ate wild greens.  People still avoided uncooked fruit and vegetables, believing them to carry disease. Indeed, during the last London plague 34 years ago (1569) it was illegal to sell fresh fruit. Though, this fear is now starting to wane, and we’re seeing oranges, lemons, quinces, apricots and melons (imported from Southern Europe).

Potatoes, and tomatoes, from the New World, are now being grown locally and just starting to be cheap enough to be used as food.

Other new foods have arrived from the New World, still expensive, include kidney beans, maize, Indian corn, chocolate, peanuts, vanilla, pineapples, French beans, red and green peppers, turkeys and tapioca.

And there is an ever-increasing appetite for sugar from sugar cane (imported from territories in the West and East Indies as well as from Morocco and Barbary). Sugar is used for anything from dressing vegetables and preserving fruit to the concoction of medical remedies. But it’s still costly.

So too was tobacco; expensive and rare.

Tea and coffee have another fifty years before they arrive.

Plenty of alcohol, however. Beers, ales, and the stronger whiskey (with an “e”)

(Gaelic “uisce beatha”, meaning “water of life”.) Whiskey wasn’t aged at this time so it was rough as guts (whiskey aging did not start until the Bushmills distillery opens in North Ireland in five years’ time).

Wine is locally made too. In fact, there have been vineyards around Cork since 450 AD.

No Guinness for another 170 years.