Students Sive Neary and Aoife Troxel who placed second in the world in the poster competition.

Students Sive Neary and Aoife Troxel who placed second in the world in the poster competition.

TWO IRISH STUDENTS have placed second in the world in a competition for a poster featuring a study which found the potato is not the most Irish vegetable.

The study, cleverly entitled ‘Tracing the Roots of Irish Vegetables‘, investigated the availability of Irish-sourced vegetables in shops.

Sive Neary and Aoife Troxel from Dominican College, Taylor’s Hill in Galway, compiled data from six shops during the same week, collecting a range of vegetables.

They found that Tesco supplied the highest percentage of Irish vegetables, while Supervalu had the least.

Believe it or not, potatoes were not the most ‘Irish’ of vegetables with 92 per cent of mushrooms in their study sourced from Ireland compared to just over 60 per cent of spuds. The onion was found to be the least Irish vegetable as it was most often sourced from abroad.

The results of the competition were announced in Hong Kong yesterday and the students’ €500 win brings the poster’s haul to €2,100, as they previously bagged a medal in a Irish Central Statistics Office competition with it.