Could Ireland survive without importing anything?

Did you ever try cooking on green wood or wet turf?

Ok, at normal consumption. Still, buys some time while new stuff dries out.

But they stopped 3.5 years ago

Perhaps with shortages of protein sources, foods that wouldn't be culturally acceptable now would begin to be consumed. Horse, donkey and goat come to mind. Households could keep a goat for milk.

Also like the war years, profiteering and black market for scarce goods would explode. Barter would take the place of money in many cases too.

They could graze lawns and green areas of housing estates and roadside verges. Maybe 50 or more years ago, it wasn't unusual to see a goat tethered near a house and moved each time it ate all round it.

Pigeons or doves could be raised for food, and take up little space, monks did so back in the day after all.

Interesting debate. I think rural people would be okay and we'd see a return to living as a community. People with actual skills necessary for survival such as farming and construction would thrive and people with no skills (apart from thieving) like bankers and politicians would be finished. I think the Euro would be instantly worthless and we'd be living a barter economy in no time.

The cities might empty out, except for the people actually born there. And eventually they might try to migrate to the more stable environment of rural communities. Whether they'd be welcomed or not depends on what they have to offer.

I don't think there would be large scale anarchy. I think law and order would also be meted out in each community and the useless drug addicts would be cured or dead within a short period.

This is all on the assumption that we are cut off permanently and we know it.

The supposed strength of JIT is interdependence, but with aging demographics and growing hostility to immigration EU wide, the supply chains would be under a lot of pressure.

I think there was a future threats reports listing supply chain shocks in the top three, along with over reliance on anti biotics creating more resistant virulent virus's.

A century ago the average life expectancy in Ireland was around 50, so looking back to community level interdependence isn't much use for the present.

We could survive but society as we know it would collapse.

We'd have no electricity, no transport, no mod cons.

We'd have to organise ourselves into agricultural communes and survive that way.

Each village would produce their own food and just survive that way.

My gran was born just at the end of Victorian and she lived til her mid 90s, but grandda kicked the bucket mid 40s.

She lived an austere life, grew veg, killed her own chicken etc.. no running water. It was a Spartan existence.

Bismarck's pension age was set at around average life expectancy, the average has increased by almost two decades since.

Some would suffer badly many wouldn't. The Government of the day would have to become authoritarian or be replaced by some form of dictatorship. Any upheval in the cities would be put down using leathal force. Money would still be in use and used for rationed goods at least. there would be no shortage of protein, more likely carbs and veg.

Famously someone said about Arigna coal that they kept a ton of it handy around the place in case a fire broke out.

Ireland has a short growing window for fresh horticulture produce we could not be self sufficient all year based on our current consumption patterns.

Well there is a lot of cattle and sheep to go through first!

There's different storage methods like pickling.

Or the traditional Irish method of boiling it until the flavor is removed.

Any chance we could grow coffee beans in the sunny south east 😢

No electricity so no radio or any other telecommunications.

We'd have to live in village communes where we grow all our own food.

People would learn different trades like clothes maker or shoemaker or candle maker and whatnot.

We'd have to relearn old food preserving techniques like pickling, salting etc..

Maybe some bartering between villages.

There would be marauding gangs raiding villages so each village would need security.

Could be an improvement..

We wouldn't be able to access or transport the gas without fuel or electricity.

I think what would happen is that all remaining solar panels would be used for what's most vital like hospitals but solar panels have a lifespan also.