Irish food is generally highly meat-oriented, and you don't have to be a vegetarian to find this wearing after a while. Having said that, meat in Ireland is generally of a good standard - lamb and steaks, in particular, are excellent - it's just that, after a while you begin to long for some variety in your diet and for something which hasn't been grilled or fried.

If you're staying in B&Bs initially, you'll most likely be served the hearty "traditional" Irish breakfast of sausages, bacon and eggs, which usually comes accompanied by generous quantities of delicious soda bread. Country pub lunch staples are usually meat and two veg, with plenty of potatoes and gravy, although you can usually get sandwiches (sometimes excellent, but often sliced white bread and processed cheese), and homemade soups can be very good too. Most larger towns have good, simple coffee shops (open daytime only) where you can get soup, sandwiches, cakes and scones, and a choice of one or two hot lunches. In the North expect enormous platters of meat, vegetables - most usually cabbage - and plenty of potatoes. It's worth remembering that many hotels in the Republic will offer food to non-residents so you can usually find a sandwich and a cup of coffee at any reasonable hour, which can be especially worth remembering on Sundays. You can generally order a plate of sandwiches and a pot of tea in pubs too - as long as it's before 6pm. This said, huge areas of the countryside offer no places to eat or drink at all - and many cafés and restaurants outside the cities close from September through to May. If you are going to explore the best of the landscape, you'll probably need to take your own provisions.

Many traditional Irish dishes, served up in abundance in many areas of rural Ireland, are based on the potato and you certainly do get an awful lot of them - often served up in several different forms in the same meal. Potato cakes can be magnificent - a flour and potato dough fried in butter - as can potato soup. Irish stew of varying qualities will be available almost everywhere. Colcannon - known as champ in the North - made up of cooked potatoes fried in butter with onions and cabbage, or leeks, is delicious. Barm brack , a sweet yeast bread with spices and dried fruits, is thoroughly traditional; carrot cake is perhaps a more recent introduction and is seen in coffee shops and tea rooms throughout the Republic.

Throughout Ireland's major cities it's a different story: in the Republic the economic boom of recent years coupled with the return of a large number of Irish people who have been living overseas, means that increasingly inexpensive lunch and dinner menus may just as easily see Mediterranean influences as those of the traditional Irish farmhouse - and vegetarians can expect far more variety too.

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