I’m very confused right now. In trying to establish whether the crisp brand Taytos was Irish or Northern Irish, it seems like there are two crisp brands, each called Tayto, one in each country.

Those pictured above I bought in Northern Ireland and so hopefully they are the real local deal. I’m not going to try and fathom the history/logic behind it, but have instead decided it is safer just to quirk an eyebrow and move on.

People can get very loyal to national products, and while I suspected they would be very similar to other types of crisp, I had to find out.

Visually (yep, there’s no actual product shot, crap photographer strikes again) they look very like Walkers. Thin, pale fried potato slices. Taste-wise, well I really wish I’d had a comparison packet of Walkers so I could be clear on the differences.

The packet says “The Secret’s in the Flavour!” and they were strongly flavoured, which I like. Beyond that, they were pretty much what you would expect. Definitely buy them if you’re there, but keep your expectations modest.