The History of Ffrench fries

The relationship between the potato and the island of Ireland is a long and storied one, but it is one that has been examined in greater detail elsewhere. I wish to focus on one particular aspect of that relationship, one with explicit ties to Galway; the relationship between Ireland and the deep fried potato chip.

The potato was first domesticated sometime around six to eight thousand years ago, in the region that is today southern Peru and north-eastern Bolivia. It was not until sometime in the sixteenth century that the potato crossed the Atlantic, brought back by Spanish sailors returning home with silver from the Andes, most likely initially as food for the long sea voyage, with leftovers being taken ashore and planted.

No one knows for certain how the potato arrived in Ireland. Popular myth attributes it to Sir Walter Raleigh, who is said to have brought some back from the American colonies with him, and planted them on his estate in Cork. Another legend claims that they were washed ashore, again in Cork, from the wreck of one of the Spanish Armada. A more likely, if less dramatic, theory is that the potato was introduced to Ireland by the many Spanish merchants who traded here. In any event, the large numbers of Spanish ships that docked and traded in Galway would likely mean that the city would be one of the earliest places in the country to see potatoes.

Much like the potato’s arrival in Europe, the circumstances surrounding its first being served sliced and fried are shrouded in mystery. Thomas Jefferson is said to have had "potatoes served in the Ffrench manner" in 1802, while the expression "French Fried Potatoes" first occurs in print in English in 1856 in by E. Warren’s cook book Cookery for Maids of All Work. In several European countries, it is widely believed that the word ‘French’ is a misnomer; In Spain, it is believed that Saint Teresa of Ávila fried the first chips and that her fries had mystical healing properties, particularly for problems relating to the feet, while many Belgians believe that their country invented the dish. The Belgian writer Jo Gérard has claimed to possess an old family manuscript dated 1781, which  recounts that potatoes were deep-fried prior to 1680 in the Meuse valley, in what was then the Spanish Netherlands and today is Belgium, especially by the poor local fisher folk. It is telling however, that this document has never been produced by Gérard. Indeed, many other historians have pointed out that given the economic conditions in the area at the time, it would be unthinkable that peasant families would have the large supplies of oil necessary for deep frying.

In fact, the word French is not so much a misnomer, as a misspelling. The correct name is not ‘French fries’, but ‘Ffrench fries’; Ffrench not referring to their place of origin, but their creator. In the early 1670s, (several sources suggest 1672), one John Ffrench, youngest son of Sir Maximillion Ffrench, patriarch of the Ffrench tribe of Galway, decided to open a business for himself. Among their other concerns, the Ffrenches owned several fishing boats. John decided to take advantage of what today we would call a family discount; buying the fish cheap from his father, and setting himself up in business in a small townhouse near where Eyre Square sits today, selling fried fish to the dock workers and sailors of Galway. To complement his fish, John planted and grew some of the strange ‘tubers of the New World’ which had been brought to Galway by Spanish sailors, slicing and frying them along with his fish. These tubers were, of course, potatoes, and John’s business was the world’s first fish and chip shop. Thirty odd years later, in 1703, John’s nephew William, an inveterate gambler who had inherited the business from his uncle, lost it in a high stakes game of cards to a native Irish man named McDonagh. McDonagh changed the name of the shop to his own, and indeed there is still a McDonagh’s fish and chip shop in Galway (although it’s location has changed several times) but the name Ffrench’s fries stuck with the sliced potatoes, eventually changing to Ffrench fries, and later French fries. Thus was the world’s most popular food dish, albeit one of it’s most unhealthy, created in Galway.

The King's Head

The building that now houses The King’s Head pub on High Street has been a Galway landmark for centuries. Indeed, there has been a building on the site for at least 800 years, with accounts of the site being used as far back as the 1300s. The current building began life as a townhouse owned in the 1640s by the then Mayor of Galway, Tomás Lynch Fitz-Ambrose. In the centuries since then, it has been many things, from a grocers and spirit dealers, to a gunmakers, before taking up its current role as public house.

There are many theories and legends behind the signicance of the name The King’s Head. The most common dates from the mid seventeenth century, and the English Civil War. Following the Parliamentarian victory and subsequent execution of King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell led his army to Ireland, to put down the unrest here. As part of this campaign, Galway was laid siege to in 1651 and early 1652, and after the city fell to Cromwell’s forces, he left one of his lieutenants, one Peter Strubbers, as military governor. In 1654, Strubbers removed the city’s recalcitrant mayor and corporation from office, and installed himself as Mayor. He also claimed his predecessor, Lynch Fitz-Ambrose’s townhouse as his own residence. It is from Stubbers, or alternatively, from his friend and neighbour to the rear Richard Gunning, a white slave trader who shipped Irish natives to his West Indian plantations, that The King’s Head is said to take its name. According to the theory, either Stubbers or Gunning was the men who swung the fateful axe that removed the head of Charles I.

The true identity of the executioner of Charles I has never been established beyond a doubt. The man who did the deed and his assistant on the scaffold were both masked to protect their identity. The official London Hangman at the time, Richard Brandon, also known as Young Gregory after his father, is said to have refused to commit the act when asked to do so. According to some contemporary accounts, Richard gunning is said to have boasted in Galway taverns and ale houses that his arm “had felt the muscles on the neck of the King of England”; perhaps a confession of regicide? Stubbers was linked to the execution by Galway historian Jackie Uí Chionna. Following the Restoration, Charles II issued Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, a general pardon for those who fought against his father Charles I. The only people exempted from this pardon were those involved with the trial and execution of Charles I, a list on which Charles II included Stubbers, even though he played no public role in the execution or trial. Could Galway’s King’s Head have earned its name from its most infamous owner having murdered a monarch?

Unfortunately, for the proponents of this theory, there are many other candidates for the killer of the king. The most likely of these, despite his initial refusal, is Richard Brandon. According to some sources, Brandon confessed later in his life to having swung the axe, and even claimed that he was paid thirty pounds for the deed, paid to him in half crown coins. Another possible suspect is one William Hewlett, who was, in fact, convicted of regicide, after the Restoration.

So, if neither Stubbers nor Gunning were Charles’ executioner, then where did The Kings’ Head get its name? There is one more literal, though undeniably more fantastical theory. First, let us look at the several strange incidents relating to the execution of Charles I. It was standard practice at executions at this time for the head of a traitor to be held aloft to be viewed by the crowd, and the words "Behold the head of a traitor!" to be spoken. This practice however, was not carried out at Charles’ execution, and the head was not displayed to the masses in any way. Sometime after the execution, the head was released to Charles’ was released to his family, to be sewn back onto his body so that they could pay their respects, although the head had decomposed significantly by this point. Years later, however, several of his relatives, including two of first cousins, claimed that the head could not have been  that of Charles, as it was missing a distinctive scar behind his right ear. Finally, when asked at his trial what the king’s last words had been, William Hewlett claimed that  the king continuing to talk after his head had been removed from his body, before  being silenced by the guards of the court. No further reference was made to this during the trial, and no further accounts of Hewlett mentioning this exist.

These incidents would all seem to give credence to one particularly fanciful theory, which states that the head of Charles I survived the separation from his body, and indeed for many years and decades later, and that as well as surviving beyond the death of its body, the monarch’s head gained the power of prophecy, predicting all manner of events, albeit through cryptic riddles and poetic couplets. Proponents of this theory believe that Cromwell and his allies were unwilling to destroy the head, fearing it to be a sign from God of his anger at their deposing and killing the supposedly divinely appointed monarch. They also feared, however, that the head could act as a rallying talisman for royalist opponents of the Commonwealth, and so Stubbers was tasked with taking the head to the remote and unimportant city of Galway, there to guard it for the rest of his days. This wild theory would, at least account for why such a trusted lieutenant of Cromwell’s was posted to such a remote location as Galway.

Stubbers disappeared from Galway in 1656, after his house was attacked by a wild mob of townspeople, and ransacked, and It’s thought that he fled to Hessia, in Germany. Perhaps a fear of punishment for the loss of Charles’ head prevented him from returning to England, or perhaps he didn’t travel to Hessia at all, but took the head to another hiding place elsewhere in the British empire. Some accounts claim that he died in County Louth in 1685; was he guarding the prophetic head of a dead king there? What is known to be true is that from 1672 until at least 1895, there are local accounts from Galway of a secretive society of gentlemen known as the Court of the Disembodied King. Although little is known about the aims or beliefs of this secretive society, its members included some of Galway’s richest and most powerful residents, including many of its mayors and aldermen. Was this group a cult built up around the worship of the head of Charles I? Might they still even exist in secret? Nobody can know for sure. Galway folklore will tell you, however, that when one is facing a difficult decision in life, and if one can find the right people to ask, then the dilemma can be put to the Disembodied King, and his advice is said never to be wrong. Although the tales do warn that his advice never comes without a price.