Before 1954, an Irish packet of crisps came with a small twist of salt, and you seasoned them yourself. Then a Dublin crisp maker called Joe Murphy put the flavour on the crisps. Here is the story of Tayto, the man who perfected cheese and onion at a kitchen table, and the humble sandwich Irish people still build from a packet.
Crisps with a bag of salt
The Irish Times food writer Aoife McElwain set out to answer one question in 2019: did Tayto really invent cheese and onion crisps? Her first finding is that Tayto was not the first Irish crisp maker. According to the museum exhibition at Tayto Park (now Emerald Park), Star Crisps of Clontarf, Dublin, came first.
What set Tayto apart when it launched in 1954 was flavour. Its first range was plain, cheese, and cheese and onion. Until then, snack crisps were unflavoured and came with small sachets of salt, so you could season them yourself. Tayto’s marketing manager Carol McCaghey told the paper that Tayto “was certainly one of the first to put the flavouring onto the crisps directly”.
Joe Murphy and the kitchen table
The company was founded in 1954 by Joe Murphy. A 2001 obituary in the Telegraph, quoted by the Irish Times, says he started from a factory in O’Rahilly’s Parade, off Moore Street in Dublin, with one van and eight employees.
One of those first employees, Seamus Burke, was given the job of perfecting the new flavour. According to the same obituary he worked on “essentially nothing more sophisticated than a kitchen table”, experimenting until he reached a cheese and onion his boss judged acceptable. It was a success at home and abroad, and within two years the business had moved to larger premises.
The Irish Times says Murphy and Burke are credited with being the first crisp makers in the world to invent cheese and onion. That claim rests on the obituary, so we pass it on as “credited with” rather than as settled fact.
From Moore Street to Ashbourne
Tayto was bought by Raymond Coyle’s Largo Foods in 2006, and Coyle opened Tayto Park in Ashbourne, County Meath, in 2010 (renamed Emerald Park in 2023). If you are planning a trip, see the Emerald Park website for what is on, and our guides to Ireland’s best foodie towns for the food side of the journey.
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How to make a crisp sandwich (serves 1)
It is hardly a recipe, and that is the point. Our own Tayto crisp sandwich page has storage tips and troubleshooting. The method below is the short version. Use good Irish butter, because it is the wall that keeps the bread from going soft.
Ingredients
- 2 slices of sliced white bread
- 15 g soft Irish butter
- 1 small packet (25 to 30 g) of cheese and onion crisps
Method
- Butter one side of each slice right to the edges.
- Open the packet and press the crisps lightly in the bag with your hand, so they crack into large pieces.
- Spread the crisps over one buttered slice in an even layer.
- Close the sandwich with the other slice, butter side down, and press gently.
- Cut in half and eat straight away, before the crisps soften.
Which flavour goes in your crisp sandwich: cheese and onion, or plain?
Sources
- Did Tayto really invent cheese and onion crisps?, Aoife McElwain, The Irish Times, 17 June 2019
- Emerald Park (formerly Tayto Park)
- How to Make a Tayto Crisp Sandwich, Love Ireland
Checked November 2026.
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