It always had a map of Ireland on the bottle, that was the Irel coffee I remember.

I think it was a mixture of coffee and chicory - a kind of a black sticky liquid. You’d pour out a spoonful into a cup, add boiling water, and that was the coffee we knew in the last century.

Strange coincidence, isn’t it then, that nowadays we sow chicory in grassland for grazing animals.

Apparently, the chicory plant has very long roots which bring up different minerals from deep down in the soil.

Chicory is what’s known as an anthelmintic plant, which produces health-giving properties beneficial for livestock. They say ‘what’s good for the goose is good for the gander’, so if chicory improves the wellbeing of animals, it can’t be bad for us humans either!

There was always a bottle of Irel at the back of the lower kitchen cupboard at home - alongside the Andrews Liver salts, the black treacle, the Cod liver oil, and the Glaubers salts. The proximity of these products to each other indicated that they were sometimes needed and all had beneficial characteristics.

Now, the Irel coffee had a strong taste - to mix my metaphors, ‘it wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea’ - but I liked it.

In fairness, tea was the favourite beverage in our house and apparently all over the country - we are still, to this day, one of the highest consumers of it per capita in the world.

‘Come in for a cup of tea’, or ‘the kettle’s boiling so let ye wait for a cup out of yere hand’, were regular salutations in Irish homes where tea was the drink of welcome and of conversation.

Making Irel coffee had so many variants: a spoonful of the viscous liquid in a cup, add boiled water, and then, according to personal taste - sugar and milk. The Irel was also........

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