My mother is from Tipperary too, she was born in Clonmel. Congratulations on NOT using any baking powder! I'll try your recipe tomorrow and let you know how I like it.

I know the town well. Till they put in a Tesco in Tipp we always went to the big city of Clonmel to shop. A great little town. I hope the bread turns out for you. I found my oven was not as hot as I thought it was so it was a bit doughy the first time. The second time I nailed it. We love eating this warm with butter and it usually doesn't make it to dinner time around our house. Enjoy.

I just noticed you don't use buttermilk. Have you ever?

The recipe just said "milk" but back in the day it no doubt was buttermilk. I'll bet it would be a fabulous addition as I use buttermilk in pancakes and it gives a real zing to the flavor. I haven't tried it myself but it sounds good. This is a really basic recipe that you can jazz up with raisins or herbs like any bread recipe so why not use buttermilk. Thanks for a great idea.

This was a very easy and tasty recipe. I had to use a few more tablespoons of butter though in order to get the coarse meal. I was concerned about the ratio of dry/wet ingredients as well but in the end it turned out great in spite of the fact that I had to use soy milk. Also I did not use cornmeal as I didn't have any but I had no problem with it sticking on the parchment paper. This is a very hearty bread and I think adding raisins as suggested would be great.

I'm happy you enjoyed this as I'm sure my great grandmother would have been pleased also, though I doubt there was much soy milk in Ireland in the early 1900's. I'm curious to try that and see how it effects the final taste. I'm glad you had success and it turned out great.