Veg Friendly Irish Dishes

I'm not being sarcastic, but traditional Irish food is usually meat based to you will probably be able to enjoy the wide variety of potatoes and other vegetables, bread and scones.

Desserts you may want to consider that I associate with Ireland from living there are Banoffi (cream pie with banana, cream, caramel), Pavlova (meringue and fruit), and bread pudding.

There is a great Dublin restaurant for vegetarians and vegans called Cornucopia that I highly recommend: http://www.cornucopia.ie/food/

Guinness is a meal in a glass, right? Ireland also has its share of lovely local cheeses for your picnic lunch, or might be offered in a pub as a ploughman's lunch.

I think many of Ireland's restaurants have modernized and expanded menus beyond what we think of as traditional. I'm not a vegetarian but would look for vegetarian soup or "pie" options (whether with pastry crust or mashed potato top).

If you have a chance, the book Pot on the Fire has a chapter that I really enjoyed about just how the Irish did survive on potatoes, before the potato blight. In a nutshell, add a dash of milk, a sprinkle of herbs or onions, mash it up and call it colcannon or champ.

Not sure where you will be, but first, I never had any problem finding things in the pubs, they always had a surprisingly large list of veggie sides that a meal could be made out of as well as daily specials Some other suggestions are Momo in Waterford, Cafe Sol in Kilkenny, The Pantry in Kinsale, Ard Bia at Nimmos in Galway, Queen of Tarts in Dublin. Again, I never had any problem in even the smallest towns (Portmagee for example) of finding vegetarian meals.

Note that while Guiness may be a meal in itself, it may not be a vegan meal. Last I heard they are moving away from using fish bladder in the filtration for their beer. It was supposed to be in place by end of 2016, but I have not seen any confirmation of this.

If you're a strict vegetarian or vegan, you may want to check. This may apply to any cask beer, btw.

Hope this isn't too much of a downer.

The only one I know of for sure is in Dublin-assuming you'll be there for some of the time, it's a great spot, some meat, some vegetarian dishes:

http://www.thefarmfood.ie/

Thank you all for taking the time to respond!

I pretty much assumed the food would be as Stephanie advised. I read through quite a few restaurant menus before posting and noted that the trend for veg food was Asian or Middle Eastern inspired. Thankfully I love carbs and dairy so bread, scones, butter and cheese all sound wonderful. The colcannon sounds especially tasty :) I knew about Guinness and isinglass so it was never really an option but it isn't too much of a let down since I'm not a fan of really dark beers.

I look forward to trying the Irish food which may be veggie friendly - since this is my first trip to a destination not in Asia in the past 15 years I am determined to avoid all the rice, tofu, and veggie inspired dishes even if it means I'll be surviving on soda bread and butter with a side salad for every meal.

I'll take all your advice into consideration and will read up on the use of potatoes in Irish cuisine as well check out the restaurants you listed!