Bread Making.
About forty or fifty years ago people made a lot of boxty and oat mean cakes and boiled boxty and potato cake.
This is the way boxty is made. First about a dozen of big potatoes are washed clean and the sand picked out of the eyes and sometimes they are peeled when they are put into a basin and grated.(A grater is a piece of tin which is holed with a nail.) When they are grated a teaspoon full of soda is put into it and mixed well with an iron spoon or sometimes with a wooden spoon which is made for the purpose. Next about four or five handful of flour are mixed well through it. Then the oven is well heated and greased with butter and about seven or eight spoonful of boxty is put into the oven and evened or flattened well with a spoon and the oven is hung on the fire and there is no lid put on it because the lid sweats it and it does not be nice. After about ten minutes the boxty is turned and hung on the fire again and in about five more

Long ago the people made bread from the four kinds of grain namely, barley, rye, wheat, and oats. Sometimes they made potato cake, boxty, and oatenbread.
Boiled Boxty. First the potatoes were picked and washed. Then they were peeled and grated. The water was then wrung off them. A pot of water was boiled and the ray and boiled potatoes were mixed together. They made small hurleys of it and left them into the water carefully. It was boiled for about a quarter of an hour.
German Boxty. The potatoes were picked and washed. They were then peeled and grated. They were put into a strainer to take some of the water off them. Then they were put into a baisin and put some flour, salt, and some new milk on them. It was then beaten to a thick batter. The pan or oven needed to be very hot and well greased before the boxty was put down. The batter was put in about a quarter of an inch deep.
Baked boxty. It is made the same as boiled boxty only that it is baked instead

My mother frequently makes boxty.

The kinds of bread used by the people were boxty and flourbread. There were two kinds of boxty pan. Boxty and boiled boxty. It (They) was made from raw potatoes grated. Then the water was squeezed off it in a boxty bag. Some flour was added and wet with water and milk mixed. In winter when milk was scarce the people grated potatoes and let them rest over night until the starch rested on the bottom. Then they strained off the top part and they had yeast which was used to make bread light.Pat McDermott, Scrabbagh
Recorded from Mrs. McDermott, Scrabbagh, Kilclare, 98 yrs

along with the bruised potatoes and so made quite an appetiting meal.Sometimes the people used to make potato cake and boxty when they used to be tired of using potatoes and dip. Now here is the way they used to make the boxty. They used to get some potatoes and washed them and peel them. Next they used to get a grater and a wooden dish which they used to have for the purpose of making boxty. When they used to have it grated they used to put it into little calico bags and they used to wring the water out of it. Then they used to get some boiled potatoes and peel them and bruise them on a dish. Next they used to mix the grated potatoes and the boiled potatoes together. Then they used to make small round cakes from the mixture and they used to put the cakes into a pot of boiling water and boil them. The boxty was generally made at night. When they used to be boiled it used to be put on plates and left till the next morning. Then they used to cut the boxty into slices and fry it in oil. This also used to make a quite appetiting meal.

South Leitrim is a place called Boxty Cloone.

grated on a "boxty-grater" - which was made by punching holes in a tin plate. When several potatoes had been grated the raw gratings which contained a considerable quantity of water were wrung in a muslin cloth. The water oozed out through the cloth leaving the gratings comparatively dry. To make this material more adhesive a little flour was minced through the mass and having flattened it out into a cake or several cakes the boxty was baked on the pan. To prevent the cakes from sticking to the pan a little dripping or butter was melted on it beforehand and this had the desired effect.
Boiled boxty was made in exactly a similar way except that the wringings were made into rather thick dumplings with the aid of some flour and boiled in a pot of water for about two hours. The latter type of boxty was not quite so palatable as the fried kind but if it were allowed to cool and warmed on the pan after being cut into thin slices it was quite as good to eat as the "pan boxty". Potato cakes were also very popular in olden times but over indulgence often resulted in a most distressing heart-burn. The potato cake was made by first boiling the potatoe then peeling and masking them and finally by mixing with flour and soda and baking them on the pan.

the pan and let bake for about fifteen minutes or less. It is then taken up and is ready for use.
Boxty bread was also made in my district In those days the people grew a lot of potatoes and it was from them that the people lived on mostly. Boxty bread was made from potatoes. The potatoes were washed and pealed. They were then (greated) and put into a boxty bag and the water wrung off them. They were then put out on the table and boiled potatoes added to it. Salt is afterwards added and they are all mixed together. A little flour is then added. and it is made into cakes. They are then boiled and are ready for use. There is also another kind of boxty called pan boxty. It is made the very same only that there is no boiled potatoes added, and there is a little soda added also. It is then put on the pan and let do for a quarter of an hour or so. This is a very nice kind of food and very healthy.

"boxty dumplings." It is baked in an oven like a soda cake. Boxty is very wholesome food when cooked right. The principal potatoe used for making boxty is the kerspink.

A favourite article of food long ago was called "boxty" and indeed it is still made in many houses during the months of harvest and winter. It is made from potatoes and flour but it is not the same as what is called "potato cake." Boxty is of two kinds - "dumplings" and "pancake boxty. To make "dumplings" a number of specially good potatoes is picked out and peeled while in the raw state after being thoroughly washed. The "eyes" were carefully picked to remove all specks of dirty or anything else which might effect the quality of the boxty. The potatoes were then grated by means of a large tin greater. These graters were made by travelling tinkers and sold at the farmers' hoses. These graters were kept spotlessly

33. Foods and drinks.
Boxty Bread: There are two kinds of boxty, boiled boxty and baked boxty. To make boiled boxty, take equal quantities of raw and boiled potatoes. Peel all potatoes, grate the raw ones and mash the boiled ones. Dry the raw potatoes in a linen cloth and mix all together in a basin. Add some salt and flour and knead. Steam for an hour.
The baked boxty is made from raw potatoes only. Mix in a little flour and salt until a firm paste is made. Flatten out to 1/2" in thickness and bake on a slow pan.
Pinneadi was the name given to the following preparation. To make, cut two or three slices of bakers's bread. Remove crust. Place on a saucer and pour boiling water over all the bread allowing it to soak through. Have heated milk in a saucepan. Add sugar - (l tsp. to 3 tsps.) to milk. Strain water from bread and place bread in saucepan. Return saucepan to fire and stir. This is usually called "child feeding" but grown up people sometimes eat it.

I have often made boxty in this way and people who have eaten it vouched that it was fit for a king.
The Germans make boxty too but they cook theirs in boiling fat something after the fashion of cooking doughnuts. I know a parish not far from here and during the Autumn months and winter too the people make a weekly supply of boxty and fine strong people they are. The women with beautiful complexions etc. and the men strong and tall. You couldn't entice some of those people to eat roast beef or mutton if you died. Chicken is the only meat that appeals to them.
I asked my grandmother (RIP) why they didn't prefer soda-bread to boxty, as it is much quicker to make. Boxty is a very troublesome thing to prepare for the pot she told me that in her young days flour was 3/6 and 4/- a stone and that it was a very comfortable farmer indeed who was able to buy a 1/2 cwt of flour at a time

Potato-cakes, boxty bread, oaten- meal and griddle bread were made in olden days.

In olden-times, bread-making was quite different from what it is now. Bread was made from the grain grown locally. Long ago, no flour bread was made. Oaten and Boxty-bread, were chiefly what the people ate. I like the oaten bread, and learned from grannie how to make it.
First, you put oaten-meal in a bowl with some salt, and luke-warm water, and mix to a paste. Then you put the cake on the griddle, and bake on the fire. She also told me how to make boxty-bread. First, peel raw potatoes, and grate them. Then mix with flour, and a little soda and salt, until it comes to a paste. Then bake on the griddle or pan. She told me the rhyme about boxty.
Boxty on the griddle, boxty on the pan,
If you don't ate boxty, you'll never

Food Long Ago.
in use. There were always a lot of eggs eaten on Easter Sunday. On all Souls Night a lot of colcannon was eaten. Long ago people ate pancakes made in buttermilk on Shrove Tuesday. In this district tea was used over a hundred years ago. Noggins were in (in) use before cups became common. There are some noggins to be seen here and there still. There were two kinds of boxty, boxty dumpling and boxty pancakes. Boxty dumpling was made from raw potatoes grated and put into a calico bag and all the water squeezed out of them. Then they were mixed with flour, and they were flattened out and put into a pot of boiling water. These dumplings when left over were put on a pan and warmed up. Boxty pancakes were made much the same as boxty dumplings but a boiled potato or two was mixed with it. Then it was put on a well greased pan or griddle.
written by Philomena Murtagh, Mullacroy, Drumcree, Mullingar

making boxty bread starch was made from the juice.

for baking potato bread or boxty and stampy.

a table along the wall and eat their dinner, and when the dinner was over the table was hung up on the wall. I do not know of anyone having a side table in this district except John Farrell Derawley, I have seen this side table and it was hung up on the wall by an iron peg that was in the wall. About forty or fifty years ago, people used boxty for dinner almost every day, and when they had not butter or bacon for it they put sugar on milk and dipped the boxty in it. They also used sugar and milk when eating stirabout. The stirabout was often made of Indian meal. They also made boxty loaves and eat them when they were cold, they also made dumplins from grated potatoes – thus the grated potatoes were squeezed with a boxty bag and the water wrung out of it then it was mixed with flower

boxty is called pan boxty. When it is baked it is put on a plate and there is butter put on one side of it.
Boxty dumplings are also made. They are made into round cakes about an inch and a half thick. Some people make boxty loaves also.

added and all made into a batter and baked on a hot greased pan like pancakes. This is called pan boxty. Boxty - loaf is made like pan boxty only boiled bruised potatoes are added with flour and salt to the grated squeezed potatoes and the whole is mixed to a stiff dough and baked like a soda in a hot oven.
Boxty dumplings are made like boxty loaf but they are made into small round cakes and put into boiling water and boiled for one hour.Written by Brigid Reilly, Cloughernal, Granard.