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Serieswhat's the craic
The Feeder's Digest: Has Irishness finally become cool enough for the Great British table?
Irish food, fashion, music, language and brands have become fixtures of British popular culture. A right turn-up for the books.
IT SEEMS A grand irony that, as the dial on Irish unity creeps further by the day, the Brits are At It Again™️, yet in the most unexpected and surprising way: Irish culture is now finally “cool” across the water.
While UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham insists the question of Irish unification is “off the table”, to which the nationalist leaders of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales jointly retorted telling Westminster to sling yer hook and count your days, in reality Irish culture has been firmly set on the Great British table. Our symbols, language and biggest brands are being exported and gobbled up with gusto, embraced and coveted for their merits, rather than eschewed deliberately because of where they come from.
Pellador jerseys, jumpers and caps with triskel spirals are stocked in Selfridge’s; Cashel Blue is the big cheese on the counter right now, championed by Neal’s Yard Dairy and scooping a Golden Fork at the Guild of Fine Food’s annual Great Taste Awards 2026; meanwhile Guinness remains the UK’s most popular pint, usurping Carling in recent years and accounting for one in every nine pints ordered in the UK. That figure is probably much larger in London, where Guinness’ domination is nigh on unstoppable.
Even the King is a fan. The Open Gate Brewery opened its third international site in late 2025, the first in the UK following sites in Baltimore and Chicago, where King Charles III christened its arrival by pouring one of the first pints from the taps. Mar a deir an seanfhocal, “is túisce deoch ná scéal” — a drink precedes a story.
If you’re Irish, come into the parlour
The emblematic Irish stout seems to have been an unshakeable catalyst, and the flocks who fill beer gardens and perch outside pubs after work holding pints of plain are not only endorsing but simultaneously advertising Ireland and Irishness.
The harp on the glass, the wait for the settle, the tilt of its thick creamy head, the trend to ‘split the G’; Guinness is no longer just a product; it’s a symbol and status sign. That decision at the bar speaks volumes, and with Guinness 0.0 for the no- and low- drinkers and the Nitrosurge bridging the bar experience at home, there are now fewer reasons than ever to turn one down.
Often spotted beside the black stuff in pubs from Northumberland to Newquay is another Irish emblem: the yellow stuff, the bright packets of the Northern Irish version of Tayto, made in Tandragee and found widely across UK supermarkets too. Arguably cheesier, more onion-y and intense than their southern counterparts (Free Stayto, to you and I) it’s curious that the Republic’s version comes in a red, white and blue branding, which feels like it should be catnip to our British brethren.
Will Tayto one day overtake industry dominator Walkers, like Guinness did to Carling? There’s a long way to go, but the Irish brands are competing. Barry’s is becoming far more noticeable as the tea bag of choice in cafés and hotels across the UK, while Kerrygold, in its unmistakable gold ’n’ green wrapper, continues a steady ascent in appreciation, recently dubbed the second-best butter in a taste test by The Independent, but still trails the UK’s leading brands, Lurpak and Anchor in sales.
As spice bags and chicken fillet rolls find footing and fervent fans across the Irish Sea, so too do chefs like Anna Haugh and Robin Gill, who subtly sell and elevate Irish cuisine through their careers in UK hospitality. For over a decade, Hot Dinners’ annual Murphia List has documented the Irish hospitality massive who make London tick, imbuing the city’s dining scene with a certain níl a fhíos agam cad é.
Paul Mescal’s knobbly knees and pale, sturdy, defender thighs framed by his GAA shorts broke the internet a few years ago, sending O’Neills sales soaring and landing the brand on international radars. Who knew, five years ago, that this emerging actor from Maynooth with a penchant for slutty little shorts, worn with white socks and loafers, would kick off a fashion trend — and later land him a Gucci campaign?
Cool to be Irish
Look at our current musical heavyweights, too: CMAT, Fontaines D.C. and Kneecap — all three have taken the No. 2 spot on the UK albums chart for their most recent releases. Imagine an album titled Fenian by a bilingual Belfast hip hop trio outselling a Spice Girl, Melanie C, and only being kept off the top spot by a Michael Jackson greatest hits compilation? An album like CMAT’s Euro-Country, a highly personal paean to Irish identity and all its turgidity, would never have been in contention for the Mercury Prize when the annual award began in the Nineties. Last year it was the bookies’ favourite, though both CMAT and fellow Irish act Fontaines D.C. ultimately missed out to Sam Fender.
Ciaran Gaffney’s Seanchoíche can’t put on enough events over the water, with themed storytelling sessions upcoming in Glasgow, London and Wimbledon before the year’s end. While usually hosted in English, these events draw deeply from Ireland’s oral traditions and seanchaí storytellers. Language is important, and the creeping uptake of words like “craic” and “grand” (potentially helped by the impossibly popular I’m Grand Mam podcast) in the British vernacular may be telling a similar story: Irishness is desirable and Irish identity and culture are now considered fashionable, even chic. The French better watch out.
200 years ago the British media and elite tarred Ireland in what we now recognise as paddywhackery: a turbulent, backward and lawless land, which needed to be subdued into total subservience as subjects of the crown.
Two centuries later, the descendants of those who defined Ireland as a colonial backwater and ruled with an iron fist are likely running around Clapham Common and London Fields in JW Anderson x Guinness jumpers and GAA shorts, Claddagh rings on their fingers, blasting Fontaines in their ears en route to the pub to split the G on a few 0.0s while bursting open a few packs of Tayto on all sides to share with pals like a pub version of tapas. They may not even have a lick of Irish ancestry, but it doesn’t matter: Irishness is officially hot.
Patrick Hanlon is an Irish food, travel and culture journalist, and is one half of the award-winning duo GastroGays. He is the author of a new food column, The Feeder’s Digest at TheJournal.ie. More on Instagram.
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