On a stopover at Foyne’s successor, the newly built Shannon International Airport, the fortuitously named Stanton Delaplane would sample the house specialty. A brew that could simultaneously bring the warming and energizing his dangerously fatigued guests required.Īnd there it started, both for the original Irish coffee and celebrity creator Joe Sheridan from Castlederg, Co. Taking pity on a crowd of passengers coming off a Pan Am flying boat, the Ulsterman set himself to whipping up something extra special. The precise stories (read lore) vary, but it seems that come one fateful yet distressingly windy and wet Limerick night, Chef Joe Sheridan stepped into the history/cookery books.

And in that tumultuous winter of 1943, it was to receive an even more enduring boon. With the Second World War raging in Euro-Atlantic skies, what had been an obscure yet ideally situated stopover, perched right on the edge of the second-vastest ocean, Foynes had suddenly grown into one of Europe’s largest civilian airports. and, as it turned out, he most certainly was! In 1943, Sheridan took up his post at the restaurant at Foynes. Known for his nonchalant demeanor and 24k heart of precious metal, his job application for the position of chef at Foynes airbase has gone down in the annals of succinctness: Joe Sheridan was born in County Tyrone in 1909. Who would battle adversity and the staunch bigotry that reigned in 1940s Ireland to serve his cream to the lips of Hollywood starlets and senators. With its protagonist a wonderfully marketable, happy-go-lucky and unassuming all-round nice guy from the Wee North. The truth of who invented the modern recipe for Irish (whiskey, cream and) coffee has a number of takes, but the most REAL, AUTHENTIC and WELL-KNOWN AND LOVED story (or at least hardest driven into the collective narrative) is a good one.

Should we perhaps pick out a name for them, too? Let’s just agree that everyone knows it was that, coincidentally half Austrian, half French wretch who worked in the back kitchen whilst the aristocracy out front belched and whipped passerbys with their canes. have been served in Parisian and Viennese cafes since the 19th century. But in the case of the original Irish coffee, who was the homo sapien that pushed us forward?Īnd lest we get ahead of ourselves, it’s worth pointing out that coffee, cream and liquor.aka ‘Irish coffee’.

Coffee buzz buzz buzz