safe- a cooled repository for protecting perishable food.  

Ken Monaghan, James Joyce's nephew, writes:

"We had just such an article of furniture in our house in the west of Ireland.  It consisted of a rather square wooden cabinet on a base with a wire meat door.  The safe was always kept in the basement or the back of the house where it was coolest.  The wire mesh basically kept the flies out.  It was not an icebox as such since in those days particularly in remote  parts of the west of Ireland ice was not available."