Boxty is a traditional Irish potato dish, particularly associated with Leitrim and Cavan. It is made with potatoes, flour and milk. Irish people ate many types of potato dishes, including colcannon, potato bread and potato apple-cakes.

The potato has been central to the Irish diet from the eighteenth century onwards. For a long time, poorer people were totally dependent on the potato to survive.

During the Great Famine (1847-1849), a blight destroyed the potato crop, leaving many Irish people with no food. Only the wealthy, who had other types of food, were unaffected by the ‘Great Hunger’. Over 1.1 million people died and 1 million emigrated in what was the greatest tragedy in Irish history.

Despite the availability of many other foods in Ireland in the present day, the potato is still a strong part of the Irish diet.