BACK IN EARLY 2015, when the Spice Bag phenomenon was really tightening its grip on this country, we attempted to track down its origins.

Deepest Carlow seemed to be the answer. It seemed to be the place where this hot sack of chips, vegetables and spices was first conceived.

In a since-deleted tweet to DailyEdge, a shadowy figure (his name was Ronan) said he’d been the first, at the New World Chinese in Bagnelstown.

Now, an intrepid RTÉ investigator has taken on the task of trying to find out for once and for all who invented the post-pub/hangover delicacy.

A spokesperson for New World Chinese told RTÉ’s Liam Geraghty that they had in fact come up with the Spice Bag – it was a ‘Stephen’ in fact who invented it, “two or three years ago”.

How interesting. And what of Ronan? The plot thickens.

The South Dublin connection

Given that there are claims that the Spice Bag has been in Dublin longer than those three or four years, the investigation continued.
JustEat.ie (who have a dedicated Spice Bag page) told Geraghty that the first recorded Spice Bag order on the site is from 2012… from Golden World in Tallaght.

But Golden World passed up the opportunity to claim the treat as their own, pointing to the Sunflower takeaway in Templeogue as the true originator.

And lo and behold, the gang there say they’ve been serving a Spice Bag “off the menu” for at least seven or eight years.

And here it is:

Sunflower Chinese Takeaway, Orwell Shopping Centre, Templeogue. We salute you.

Listen to the full RTÉ report here 

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