Irish cuisine can be divided into two main categories – traditional, mainly simple dishes, and more modern dishes, as served by hotels etc. for tourists.

There are many Irish dishes involving potatoes. Colcannon is a dish made of potato and one of wild garlic (the earliest form), cabbage or curly kale, (compare bubble and squeak). Champ consists of mashed potato into which chopped scallions (spring onions) are mixed.

Other examples of simple Irish meals are Irish stew, and also bacon and cabbage (boiled together in water). Boxty is another traditional dish. A dish mostly particular to Dublin is coddle, which involves boiled pork sausages. Ireland is famous for the Irish breakfast, consisting mainly of pork, and may include fried potato farls.