Damian Corless's Sweet Tooth

When I was five years old I used to walk to my Irish dancing class each Saturday with Therese, a friend and neighbour. She was ten, older and infinitely more sophisticated. Every week I would endure the lesson (I was not blessed with grace) and then run to the tiny sweetshop on the corner to spend whatever few pennies I’d managed to cadge together.

One week Therese came into some money and declared to my mother that she was going to treat me on our way home. ‘Don’t stuff yourselves,’ my mother warned. ‘You’ll ruin your dinner.’ Despite this warning, we bought up the entire shop. All the expensive sweets and chocolate bars that I’d never tried because they were, in my mother’s opinion, ‘for grown-ups’ were bought that day, shared and sampled. Never mind ruining my dinner, I was in serious danger of being sick.

‘Will you be able to eat your dinner?’ Therese asked as we waddled slowly home. ‘Nope,’ said I, ‘not a chance.’

Therese nodded solemnly and reached into her coat pocket. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I bought this just in case.’ She produced a Milky Way bar, the sweet you could eat between meals without ruining your appetite. ‘If we eat this between us, it’ll make room in our stomachs and we’ll be ok.’ Her logic was impeccable. Solemnly I watched as she divided the bar, nibbled bravely at my share of it and then, with the power of mind over matter, declared that I was now completely empty. More to the point, I was starving.

Somehow I convinced my mother of the same thing. I even managed to eat enough dinner to divert suspicion, however sick I felt, because to do otherwise would have been chocolate blasphemy. It was unthinkable that chocolate would ever be wrong, or advertising lie to us. Such was the incredible power of sweets in 1970s Ireland.

I had completely forgotten that story until I read You’ll Ruin Your Dinner, Sweet Memories of an Irish Childhood by Damian Corless. Suddenly it all came flooding back; fizzle sticks and golly bars, peggy’s leg and gobstoppers. The first time I ever ate a Snickers bar (then called Marathon) or experienced the tongue-tingling crackles of Moondust. This book is a trip down memory lane for the sweetest form of nostalgia.

But You’ll Ruin Your Dinner is not just a litany of ‘do you remember Spangles?’ or ‘remember when Starburst were called Opal Fruits?’ It’s also a cleverly written history, both social and economic, of the Irish love affair with sweets. Decade by decade, the book details the new and popular sweet treats of the era and the political and economic events that, in many cases, led to their invention. Ever wondered to what degree the Irish confectionary industry was influenced by American prohibition, or the Second World War? Or why ice-cream was a divisive issue between Catholics and Protestants? You’ll find the answers to those questions and many more in this book, along with fascinating snippets of confectionary history and charming memories from sweet-eaters of every decade. It’s the perfect gift book to get the whole family talking this Christmas.

Fascinated by this book, I spoke to Damian Corless about it.

Damian, this isn’t your first book, is it?

No, I’ve written a number of what I call ‘gonzo’ histories in the past, including The Greatest Bleeding Hearts Racket In The World which was about the Irish Sweep Stakes. That was a horrendously hard book to write, because everyone had an opinion on the subject. Everywhere I went someone wanted to argue with me about it.

So what inspired you to go from Irish Sweeps to Irish Sweets?

Ha! Well, I’m a qualified history teacher, history of any sort is my main love. I quickly realised that this sweets book would be the exact opposite of the book on the Sweeps; for starters, no-one really knows about the history of sweets in Ireland, so there was no-one to argue with. Also it was totally under-researched until now so I wanted to rectify that. After the hard work of writing about the Sweeps, this was a much lighter topic and very liberating. I managed to dig up loads of material that people would never think of.

Give me an example.

Well, for starters, in the early 20^th century most sweet shop owners were complete bastards. Sweetshops were huge business (Baggot Street alone had eleven sweetshops), but only for the wealthy – most ordinary people would never see inside them. Then during the 1916 Rising there was a huge amount of looting. What was the first target? Sweetshops. Ordinary people gorged themselves on sweets and chocolate. For many it was both their first and possibly their last taste of good-quality confectionary.

What were the overall standards of Irish sweets like?

They varied. Some were very good indeed, but others – like ice-cream – were a different story. Ice-cream became popular when there was a glut of milk in the early 1930s, but this was pre-refrigeration and hygiene was sometimes very poor. There were very clean dairies – like Hughes Brothers in Rathfarnham – but there were also charlatans making ice-cream in their garages in appalling conditions. Frequently food-poisoning cases were traced to these ice-cream vendors, and their bigger competitors complained that the small operations were giving them a bad name. In one case a child in the UK died, leading to an outcry in the media. A spokesperson for a large dairy was quoted as saying that the coverage was disproportionate, given that ‘only one child has died’.

What was the influence of the Second World War on Irish Sweets?

It was huge. With the introduction of rationing, much of the industry went underground to the black market. There was a ban on trade in sweets between Britain and Ireland until the end of rationing, so Irish confectioners were encouraged to develop new lines of their own. However, most Irish sweet makers couldn’t afford the expensive machinery of their British counterparts, so much of the production was still done by hand. As well as that, since petrol was also rationed, most confectioners sold only to a limited catchment area. The industry remained very localised until the end of the 1950s, when a number of them went national and others just died out. Then came a huge influx of imported sweets.

Are there any sweets from your childhood that are lost to time, that you’d love to bring back?

Liquorice torpedoes! They were my favourites. I also loved Lucky Balls, which were a huge ball of toffee that would last you all day. If you were lucky, you might find one with a coin inside it.

That sounds dangerous...

Yeah, it was. So were those huge gobstoppers, there was a case of a child choking to death on one of those. Of course people called for them to be banned, but the Minister for Health at the time said it was none of his business to interfere in someone’s livelihood by telling him what to put in his sweets! In the end they were banned anyway, so was any sweet that contained a coin or similar small thing inside them. Killjoys...!

Finally, what do you think of the new fashion for retro sweets?

I think it’s great to see all these old-style sweet shops springing up again – and it’s not just in Ireland, it’s a global trend. I suppose it’s down to the recession; people may have less money now, but they have more time to browse and choose.

And long may the love of sweets continue! Thanks for talking to me, Damian.

(c) Jane Travers, November 2011 

Jane Travers is a fellow connoisseur of all things delicious. Learn more about her recipe book Tweet Treats in her interview with writing.ie.

Jane has also interviewed YA author Lauren Kate and has contributed to Mining Memories with My Mother Wears a Car on the Third Finger of her Left Hand