Irish Pigs

Pigs 

Pigs had special prominence in Irish culinary preferences. In some cases, pork seems to have been preferred even over beef (1), and pigs fattened on acorns and milk were considered the very highest quality. Apart from meat, pigs also provided ivory tusks, bristles, thick leather and dense, strong bones, excellent for carving and tool making.

Laws pertaining to pigs and pork in Ireland ranged from guesting laws, requiring specific allotments to the table of hospitality, and fosterage laws specifying amounts of meat for foster children, to damage laws itemizing the fines caused by escaped pigs, or exemptions from liability for the farmer if someone was stupid enough to climb into a sow's nest when she had piglets. Pigs, it seems, were ubiquitous and sometimes dangerous—although there are enough references to pet pigs to demonstrate that raising runts by hand-feeding them milk was common practice, and that the resultant pigs were friendly and followed people around (2).

Pig bones from excavated Irish sites show that the majority of pigs were butchered as adults, two or three years old (3), except for good breeding sows who might be kept longer. This suggests that the pigs of Early Medieval Ireland were slow-growing and took two years to reach a practical size for butchering. Hams were often salt cured, or smoked, and a cured slab of bacon on the hook marked a prosperous farmer (4).  The fat was as prized as the meat, and hogs that fattened easily on pasture and acorns were highly valued, so it is likely that they were selectively bred for lard production in addition to meat quality.

The Irish pigs are described in their literary sources as hairy, small, and long-legged, and they ranged in color from black, blue-black, grey and reddish-brown to light-colored (5).  They gave birth to piglets in the spring and the young pigs were ready to go out on pasture in August; the litters were sometimes large enough that runts had to be taken away and hand-raised, or they would starve in the nest (6).  The pigs were trainable and would follow the call of their swineherd, who stayed with them even in the woods at night to protect them from robbers.

Pigs were known to be good at composting, and the Irish fed them both scraps and carrion—although Irish religious texts suggest that pigs who have fattened on carrion must be allowed to grow thin again before being safe for human consumption (7).  Rooting was also a useful trait of pigs, when they were kept on the garden in winter, but a problem if the pigs escaped onto neighbor's fields and rooted up their crops (for which there were higher fines than for other livestock damage, an acknowledgment of the greater damage that pigs could cause) (8).

Sources:

1) Meyer, Kuno, ed. “The Guesting of Athirne.” Éiru 7. 1914. p. 1-9.

2) Binchy. Corpus iuris hibernici. Book iii, 891.23.

3) McCormick, Finbar. “Stockrearing in Early Christian Ireland.” Ph.D. Thesis, Queen's University, Belfast. 1987. p. 104.

4) Binchy. Corpus iuris hibernici. Book ii, 563.28.

5) Kelly. Early Irish Farming. p. 80.

6) Ibid, p. 81.

7) Bieler, Ludwig, ed. The Irish Penitentials. Scriptores Latini Hiberniae V, Dublin, 1963. Section 176.6-7.

8) Kelly. Early Irish Farming. p. 142-143.