Page 125 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SUMMER 2025 THAILAND

With these two discoveries, Dermot Friel
created an interactive museum to create
the story of the Irish famine.
The Irish peasantry relied on potatoes,
but in 1846, the crops failed because of
blight, supposedly from a fungus brought
in on a North American trading ship. Wide-
spread starvation peaked in the year
“Black 47.” Before the famine, Ireland’s
population had been around 8.5 million.
One million people died between 1845 and
1855, and more than two million people left
Ireland, one of the greatest island exo-
duses in history.
At Friels, the local doctor (whose dis-
pensary was part of the building) kept the
locals alive by feeding them nettle soup.
Nettles are weeds which are easy to find,
rich in Vitamin C and good for mild respi-
ratory conditions. Chef Mark Wilson (Friels’
chef) took us into the original kitchen and
made us nettle soup to taste (edible, but
not my favorite thing), then led us to the
restaurant for vegetable soup (delicious

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