West Cork festival explores why gout was called 'Irish hospitality'

Ireland's love affair with claret — as well as the wine trade's links to the Atlantic slave trade — is among the topics being examined at this weekend's West Cork History Festival

Claret was so popular in 18th century Ireland that Jonathan Swift referred to it as 'Irish wine'. It's one of the facets of the wine trade explored by Patricia McCarthy this weekend. Picture: Charles Jervas

Red wine from Bordeaux was so popular among the gentry in 18th-century Ireland that writer and satirist Jonathan Swift once referred to it as “Irish wine”.

Indeed, as architectural historian Patricia McCarthy will tell a history festival this weekend, Ireland’s love affair with claret was so intense that gout — the painful illness reputed to be caused by excess consumption — was known as “Irish hospitality”.