Legacy

Now we all know the Irish are prone to an occasional nip.  We also know the nip of preference is good Irish Whisky.  However, Irish Whisky is relatively expensive.  Even a homemade still was not cheap to make nor were the material needed to produce whiskey from it.

Now the Irish dearly liked good grape jam and jelly, and a little grape juice with their breakfast.  That is one of the reasons many Irish farmers had a few grapevines around.  Also making wine from grapes was relatively easy compared to making whiskey; and it was cheaper to boot.  Now Paddy Mahoney had quite a few grape vines, a small scale vineyard one might say.

Paddy being a little short on money for whiskey, made a lot of wine.  Now wine was not as powerful as whiskey so more wine had to be drank to get the same effect.  And as you all know, with an Irishman, more is always better.

Of course the vineyard required protection.  Critters like foxes and Badgers, and others, along with the two legged kind of varmint liked grapes and would steal them.  This of course caused Paddy a lot of consternation chasing and shooing and dusting someone’s backside with a little buckshot.  Still some of his grapes went bye bye.

Paddy heard the French had away of stopping theft by man and animal alike.  It seems they would spray their grapes and vines with a water downed solution of copper sulphate; the favorite ingredient in a kid’s stink bombs.  Yes it stunk.  That’s what kept animal and man away.  It did not harm the vine or the grapes, or effect flavor.  Now it is 1845 and the Irish potato famine is in full swing.  The plants get a fungus and turn black and die, the potato’s are also effected as once dug they would only last a few days before rotting.

Now Paddy also had a few acres of potatoes.  Many of his neighbor’s potato crops were succumbing to the fungal blight, and it looked like it was moving his way.  Paddy figured that as his neighbors crops failed they would be after his grapes to make wine and drown their crop failure sorrows.

Now Paddy was not about to have any of that, so he thought he’d try the French method for protecting grapes from grape grabbers.  He mixed up about a hundred gallons of watered down copper sulphate and set about spraying his grapes with the stinky stuff.

Now Paddy had had one nip to many, and faith and begorra if he didn’t do the spraying on a very windy day.  Paddy not only sprayed his grapes but the wind took the spray mist out over Paddy’s potato fields as well.  My, what a stinking mess thought Paddy after he slept it off and awoke to get a good nose full.

His grapes and potato’s stank so bad no one came near.  By the time the stink had worn off, it was harvest time and Paddy not only had a wonderful crop of grapes which produced many, many gallons of wine, he had a wonderful and bountiful potato crop as well.  This amazed Paddy and he was so overjoyed he nipped the wine a lot to celebrate his good fortune.  Good fortune indeed, since his neighbors potato crops had died and was useless.

While most of Ireland was in the throes of the great potato famine with little exception, Paddy kept stinking up his crop and doing quite well.  Paddy wasn’t sure why he was doing well.  Maybe it was the gallon of wine he sat out each month in case a wondering Leprechaun was thirsty.  It was thought to bring good luck to be kind to the wee folk.  Paddy wasn’t sure why but figured why knock it.

Paddy just kept doing well and nipping much, sat around much of the time with a silly look on his face, except for when some one would play the fiddle, and that caused him to jump up and do the Irish Jig.  Then that would be so tiring Paddy would have to nip some more to refresh himself.  Paddy was very happy.

Paddy never realized the truth of his dumb luck success.  However thirty five years later in 1880 after the three periods of potato famine was over, scientists discovered that copper sulphate was an excellent fungicide for curing potato blight.  Now fast forward to modern times, starting with what was called the Bordeaux mixture, which included copper sulphate.  Then finally a more sophisticated mixture that’s used today, potato blight will never again be a problem.