Poitín

Poitín, pronounced potcheen.

We visited the Doagh Famine Village, Lagacurry, Ballyliffin, Donegal. It is well worth a visit if you are up in that area. The guide had actually lived in one of the rural cottages up until the 1980's. The government at the time then deemed the cottages to be not suitable for habitation and built new cottages for people in the area. He gave a talk in his old cottage about the way of life in and around the area of Ballyliffin. Much of the food source was gathered from seaweed.  Also rabbit farming was a big part of the income for farmers here. The village is set up to give a history of Ireland from the famine times up to the Peace Process.  One interesting banners that was there was quoting the words of Archbishop Helder Camara from Brazil. "When you give food to the poor they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food they call you a communist."

The guide gave up a talk about the illegal distillation of poitín ( called various things in different countries, moonshine, peatreaks, widblits) in the area and how you had to be one step ahead of the police. One of the give aways was the peat fire that had to be used to heat the process for distillation. The smoke was a give away. They hid the poitín in the trenches between the boundaries of each of their lands in areas known as no mans land. So if it was discovered it would not incriminate them or their neighbour.

Gather up the pots and the old tin cans
The mash, the corn, the barley and the bran.
Run like the devil from the excise man
Keep the smoke from rising, Barney.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poit%C3%ADn

https://doaghfaminevillage.com/