Where's Our Market Then?

Almost alone among Europe’s major cities, Dublin is lacking a permanent market.

Yes we have the excellent Pearse St Saturday co-op, still existing in the face of adversity from the Food Police.
Yes,we have the monthly farmers’ markets on the periphery – but no-one except the most extreme foodie is going to drive down to Aughrim and back to get their fruit and veg.

Yes, we have the Temple Bar saturday market, that “draw the wagons into a circle” establishment in Meeting House Square in the middle of the tourist trap. Musn’t knock it, it’s a valuable resource, but really it’s too precious, too artificial to sustain a food culture.

If the current interest in real and fresh food is to be transformed from faddism into everyday normality we have to have a place where it’s the norm for Mr and Mrs Joe Dublin to go along and fill up their shopping bags with farm produce, fresh fish, well-hung meat and speciality foods.

So we URGENTLY need

1) A vocal presence by all of us who’ve got beyond the stage where “real food” means something more than shopping in M&S.

2) The goodwill and co-operation of the corpo and the Food Safety Authority

3) Food writers to spread the message that decent food is a right, not a privilege for the few who are “in the know”.

The recent French market in Wolfe Tone Square has whetted our appetite, allowed us to glimpse the possibilities. Cork’s English Market would make a handy role model, for starters. Let’s keep the impetus going.