Also cale-, cole-. [f. COLE cabbage; the rest is of uncertain meaning.
(But it is said that vegetables such as spinach were formerly pounded with a cannon-ball.)]
‘Potatoes and cabbage pounded together in a mortar and then stewed with butter. An Irish dish’ (Grose, 1785).
1774. [see in 1872].
1802. Mar. Edgeworth, Moral. T. (1816), I. x. 77. Forester … dined like a philosopher upon colcannon.
1872. Athenæum, 20 Jan., 75/1. About 1774 Isaac Sparks, the Irish comedian, founded in Long Acre a ‘Colcannon Club’ … Colcannon, that Irish dish which, properly cooked, is a delicious mixture of cabbage and potatoes.
1880. in Antrim & Down Gloss.
