Periodic Reporting for period 4 - FOODCULT (Food, Culture and Identity in Ireland, 1550-1650)
Reporting period: 2023-08-01 to 2025-07-31
What people eat is rarely just about sustenance: it reflects social identity, political authority, and cultural values. Yet the history of food has often been fragmented — symbolic representations studied separately from the material traces of diet — leaving the lived experience of eating underexplored.
FOODCULT set out to overcome this divide by producing the first large-scale, integrated history of foodways that combined archival research, archaeology, biomolecular science, and experimental reconstruction. Its case study was early modern Ireland (c.1500–1700), a society long stereotyped as poor or backward in its diets, but one that sat at the crossroads of colonisation, cultural encounter, and global connection. Ireland offered an ideal lens for examining how food operated as both material practice and cultural language in a society undergoing profound political and social change.
The project asked three fundamental questions: What did people eat? How was food consumed and understood? And what did those practices mean in a divided and changing society?
The conclusions are clear. Food in Ireland was more varied and socially complex than long assumed. Dishes mocked as signs of “backwardness” were in fact embedded in skilled traditions; foods linked with religious identity crossed confessional boundaries; and global commodities such as tobacco were absorbed not only as goods but as social rituals. Far from peripheral, Ireland’s diets reflected both deep-rooted local traditions and wider European and Atlantic exchange. More broadly, FOODCULT demonstrates that food is a powerful lens for understanding how societies experience change, offering a transferable model for studying resilience, adaptation, and power in other periods and places.
FOODCULT set out to overcome this divide by producing the first large-scale, integrated history of foodways that combined archival research, archaeology, biomolecular science, and experimental reconstruction. Its case study was early modern Ireland (c.1500–1700), a society long stereotyped as poor or backward in its diets, but one that sat at the crossroads of colonisation, cultural encounter, and global connection. Ireland offered an ideal lens for examining how food operated as both material practice and cultural language in a society undergoing profound political and social change.
The project asked three fundamental questions: What did people eat? How was food consumed and understood? And what did those practices mean in a divided and changing society?
The conclusions are clear. Food in Ireland was more varied and socially complex than long assumed. Dishes mocked as signs of “backwardness” were in fact embedded in skilled traditions; foods linked with religious identity crossed confessional boundaries; and global commodities such as tobacco were absorbed not only as goods but as social rituals. Far from peripheral, Ireland’s diets reflected both deep-rooted local traditions and wider European and Atlantic exchange. More broadly, FOODCULT demonstrates that food is a powerful lens for understanding how societies experience change, offering a transferable model for studying resilience, adaptation, and power in other periods and places.
From the outset, FOODCULT pursued an ambitious programme across archives, archaeology, biomolecular science, and experimental reconstruction. Household accounts were transcribed and analysed, archaeological data were collated into a new database, biomolecular analyses were carried out on pottery, human remains, and dental calculus, and a large-scale brewing reconstruction was designed and filmed. These strands were integrated throughout, allowing evidence from texts, excavated material, scientific analysis, and creative practice to speak to one another in unprecedented ways.
The project generated major new datasets: over 20,000 archaeological records (12,000 animal bones, 2,000 plant remains, 5,000 artefacts); one of the largest multi-isotope studies in early modern Europe (94 individuals, 361 aggregated measurements from 900+ samples, including pioneering peptide and calculus analyses); and the first systematic lipid residue study of post-medieval pottery. These reveal diets to have been more nuanced than long assumed. While social distinctions existed, there were striking overlaps: Gaelic Irish and settlers often ate similar foods, and settlers adapted local practices when necessary. The datasets also make it possible to trace individual and regional dietary patterns across lifespans, providing new resolution on food and identity.
Experimental work expanded the project’s methodological reach. The brewing reconstruction combined archival research, craft practice, brewing science, microbiology, and film to recreate sixteenth-century beer. It overturned the longstanding “small beer” assumption by showing that intoxicating strengths were achievable and common, while calorific analysis highlighted beer’s role as a staple food. The reconstruction was documented in the feature-length film Drunk? Adventures in Sixteenth-Century Brewing, conceived as both research method and output, and screened internationally at conferences, heritage sites, and festivals.
Dissemination was extensive. The team delivered 63 conference and seminar papers across history, archaeology, and bioarchaeology. Publications include the monograph Food and Drink in Early Modern Ireland (Bloomsbury, 2026) and articles in leading journals such as the Historical Journal, Food & History (shortlisted for the journal’s prize; among its most-read), and the European Journal of Food, Drink and Society. Understanding Early Modern Beer (2023) reached over 8,000 readers and ranked in the top 5% of research outputs globally. Specialist studies on cereals, meat, isotopes, residues, and dental calculus are in preparation, and all project databases will be released on Zenodo with methodological overviews to ensure long-term accessibility.
Public engagement was equally wide-ranging. The project produced the film Drunk?, contributed to the redevelopment of Dublin Castle’s permanent exhibition, and created two online exhibitions. Its findings reached an estimated 1.5 million people via international media (e.g. The Times, Irish Times, Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine, RTÉ Radio 1, Times Radio UK, CKNW Canada), alongside podcasts and blogs. FOODCULT also worked closely with heritage partners including the Weald and Downland Museum (where reconstructed brewing equipment remains in use) and the Medieval Mile Museum in Kilkenny (where isotope results inform a new exhibition). Collaborations with commercial partners such as Warminster Maltings and Canvas Brewery integrated historically authentic materials into research while also feeding back into heritage interpretation, biodiversity, and sustainable brewing practice.
The project generated major new datasets: over 20,000 archaeological records (12,000 animal bones, 2,000 plant remains, 5,000 artefacts); one of the largest multi-isotope studies in early modern Europe (94 individuals, 361 aggregated measurements from 900+ samples, including pioneering peptide and calculus analyses); and the first systematic lipid residue study of post-medieval pottery. These reveal diets to have been more nuanced than long assumed. While social distinctions existed, there were striking overlaps: Gaelic Irish and settlers often ate similar foods, and settlers adapted local practices when necessary. The datasets also make it possible to trace individual and regional dietary patterns across lifespans, providing new resolution on food and identity.
Experimental work expanded the project’s methodological reach. The brewing reconstruction combined archival research, craft practice, brewing science, microbiology, and film to recreate sixteenth-century beer. It overturned the longstanding “small beer” assumption by showing that intoxicating strengths were achievable and common, while calorific analysis highlighted beer’s role as a staple food. The reconstruction was documented in the feature-length film Drunk? Adventures in Sixteenth-Century Brewing, conceived as both research method and output, and screened internationally at conferences, heritage sites, and festivals.
Dissemination was extensive. The team delivered 63 conference and seminar papers across history, archaeology, and bioarchaeology. Publications include the monograph Food and Drink in Early Modern Ireland (Bloomsbury, 2026) and articles in leading journals such as the Historical Journal, Food & History (shortlisted for the journal’s prize; among its most-read), and the European Journal of Food, Drink and Society. Understanding Early Modern Beer (2023) reached over 8,000 readers and ranked in the top 5% of research outputs globally. Specialist studies on cereals, meat, isotopes, residues, and dental calculus are in preparation, and all project databases will be released on Zenodo with methodological overviews to ensure long-term accessibility.
Public engagement was equally wide-ranging. The project produced the film Drunk?, contributed to the redevelopment of Dublin Castle’s permanent exhibition, and created two online exhibitions. Its findings reached an estimated 1.5 million people via international media (e.g. The Times, Irish Times, Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine, RTÉ Radio 1, Times Radio UK, CKNW Canada), alongside podcasts and blogs. FOODCULT also worked closely with heritage partners including the Weald and Downland Museum (where reconstructed brewing equipment remains in use) and the Medieval Mile Museum in Kilkenny (where isotope results inform a new exhibition). Collaborations with commercial partners such as Warminster Maltings and Canvas Brewery integrated historically authentic materials into research while also feeding back into heritage interpretation, biodiversity, and sustainable brewing practice.
FOODCULT advanced the study of food and culture in ways not attempted before. Most histories of food rely on either texts, or archaeology, or science in isolation. FOODCULT was the first project to systematically align them, showing how written records, excavated remains, biomolecular evidence, and experimental reconstructions can be combined to answer shared questions. This has set a new benchmark for how interdisciplinary history can be done.
The project also pushed the boundaries of method. It created one of the most detailed archaeological foodways databases in Europe; carried out a large and multi-layered isotope programme on early modern populations; and demonstrated how practice-based approaches — from filmmaking to reconstructing historical beer — can generate knowledge in its own right. These innovations have not only deepened understanding of Ireland but also provided models for other regions and periods.
Collaboration likewise exceeded expectations. By working with museums, craftspeople, and small producers, the project showed how humanities research can contribute directly to heritage practice and to contemporary conversations about food sustainability. This interweaving of scholarship, heritage, and practice is rare in historical research and represents one of FOODCULT’s lasting contributions.
The work will continue. The datasets are vast, and many specialist publications are in progress. Over the coming years, they will shape debates in archaeology, history, and heritage studies, while ensuring that FOODCULT’s legacy endures as both a research infrastructure and a methodological model.
The project also pushed the boundaries of method. It created one of the most detailed archaeological foodways databases in Europe; carried out a large and multi-layered isotope programme on early modern populations; and demonstrated how practice-based approaches — from filmmaking to reconstructing historical beer — can generate knowledge in its own right. These innovations have not only deepened understanding of Ireland but also provided models for other regions and periods.
Collaboration likewise exceeded expectations. By working with museums, craftspeople, and small producers, the project showed how humanities research can contribute directly to heritage practice and to contemporary conversations about food sustainability. This interweaving of scholarship, heritage, and practice is rare in historical research and represents one of FOODCULT’s lasting contributions.
The work will continue. The datasets are vast, and many specialist publications are in progress. Over the coming years, they will shape debates in archaeology, history, and heritage studies, while ensuring that FOODCULT’s legacy endures as both a research infrastructure and a methodological model.