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Pork in Ireland has been a key part of the Irish diet since prehistory. Ireland's flora and fauna overwhelmingly arrived via a Neolithic land bridge from Great Britain prior to its submerging around 12,000 BP. When the very first hunter-gatherers arrived around 2,000 years later, the local ecosystem largely resembled that of modern Ireland.〔Holland, C.H. A Geology of Ireland. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1981.〕 Dating back to Neolithic times, large amounts of pig bones have been found near habitations. 〔 Lucas, Anthony T. "Irish food before the potato." Gwerin: A Half-Yearly Journal of Folk Life 3.2 (1960): 8-43. 〕 There is evidence of wild boar consumption dating as early as 9000 BP, at a Mesolithic site in, about 1,000 years before farming began in Ireland. Evidence of Stone Age farming survives in the Céide Fields in north County Mayo. Discovered in the 1930s, they are the world's oldest known extant field system and among the world's most extensive Stone Age ruins.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.heritageireland.ie/en/West/CeideFields/ )〕 Excavations of animal bones at the Newgrange site in County Meath in the 1960s confirmed that cattle and pigs were the primary food animals circa 4000 BP, with pig bones the more dominant of the two.〔Louise H. van Wijngaarden-Bakker The Animal Remains from the Beaker Settlement at Newgrange, Co. Meath: First Report.1974 Royal Irish Academy.〕 ==Medieval Ireland== Pink and black in colour, "long-snouted, thin-spare, muscular, and active"〔J O’Loan ''Livestock in the Brehon Laws The Agricultural History'' review p.72〕 the breed of pigs most commonplace in ancient Ireland were called greyhound pigs; woodland animals, they foraged on fallen acorns, hazelnuts, chestnuts and other natural foodstuffs abundantly available in a landscape almost entirely under forest. This breed remained the basis for virtually all Irish pig farming until supplanted by new breeds in the 20th century. The Irish word for pig 'muc' is closely linked with the Welsh equivalent 'mochyn' and, further afield, the swine god worshipped by the ancient Continental Gauls 'Moccus'.〔Miranda Green. Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend. Thames and Hudson Ltd. London. 1997.〕 The wild boar has a significant place in Celtic iconography and Celtic myths, a telling example being the story of Diarmait and the Boar of Benn Gulbain.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.writer2001.com/boars.htm )〕 The role of pig-keepers (''muccaid'') in tales like 'The Contention of the Two Swineherds,' and 'the Finding of the Rock of Cashel' suggest a degree of importance. Stories like 'The Story of Mac Dá Thó's Pig,' 'Bricriu's Feast' and 'The Adventure of Cormac Grandson of Con' seem to indicate likewise associations both with warrior-culture and hidden knowledge, though how much this reflected actual practice is debatable.〔R. I. Best and M. A. O’Brien (ed), The Book of Leinster Vol 5, p. 1121-1124; Thomas Kinsella (1969), The Táin, pp. 46–50; John T. Koch and John Carey (ed.), The Celtic Heroic Age: Literary Sources for Ancient Celtic Europe & Early Ireland and Wales, pp. 68–106, 184–88〕 Pork, perhaps because it was so freely and widely available, was a mainstay of consumption in ancient Ireland. Large herds were kept by kings and other nobles as they required no expense in their upkeep "beyond the pay of a swineherd".〔P. W. Joyce (1906). A smaller social history of ancient Ireland Chapter XVII〕 With the coming of Christianity and literacy from the 4th century onwards, written records throw light on contemporary social and agricultural practice in Ireland. St Patrick, who was captured as a slave by Irish pirates in the early 4th century AD herded pigs as well as sheep while a shepherd on Sliabh Mish.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/saints/patrick_1.shtml )〕 The Brehon laws, Ireland’s indigenous legal code, covered virtually almost every aspect of life and society. These were first written down in the 7th century and make frequent references to pigs and pigmeat both as a food item and a payment of tribute.〔Cathal Cowan and Regina Sexton Ireland’s Traditional Foods Teagasc〕 The potential damage wrought by pigs, for example, was recognised as the most serious of all farm animals and "for the trespass of a large pig in a growing field of corn the fine was one sack of wheat."〔Laurance Ginnell The Brehon Laws: A legal handbook〕 Irish agricultural practice came under the scrutiny of the 12th century historian Giraldus Cambrensis who accompanied Henry II in the course of his invasion of Ireland in 1171. In his Topography of Ireland Giraldus notes the ubiquity of pigs in Irish life. "In no part of the world are such vast herds of boars and wild pigs to be found," he wrote. Unimpressed by the greyhound pig he described it as "a small, ill-shaped and cowardly breed, no less degenerate in boldness and ferocity than in their shape and size."〔Giraldus Cambrensis, Topography of Ireland, Chapter XIX〕 Over 500 years later, the number of pigs in Ireland would continue to surprise observers. In 1780, one observer commented “hogs are kept in such numbers that the little towns and villages swarm with them.”〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pork in Ireland」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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