Why do they Call it "Corned" Beef?

The term “Corned” comes from putting meat in a large crock and covering
it with large rock-salt kernels of salt that were refered to as “corns of salt”
This preserved the meat. The term Corned has been in the Oxford English Dictionary
as early as 888 AD.

Irish Were the First Exporters of Corned Beef
Irish were the biggest exporters of Corned Beef till 1825.
The English were serving corned beef but also the Irish. In this day and age
corned beef and cabbage is not very Irish, but corned beef is. The area of Cork, Ireland was a great producer of Corned Beef in the 1600’s until 1825. It was their chief export and sent all over the world, mostly in cans. The British army sustained on cans of Cork’s corned beef during the Napoleonic wars.

First There was Salted Beef
The practice of salting meat goes back probably to ancient times in cold areas when they found that meat didn't spoil if it made contact with enough salt.

What a conveinience for nomads or soldieres, who were constantly traveling on horse or foot.

Origin of the Word "Corn"
The term Corn is modified from an Old Germanic (P.Gmc) Word
Kurnam which meant small seed of anything. Since a kernel of rock
salt look like a wheat or oat kernel size it became known as a corn of salt.
Even the word Kernel comes from this word Kurnam. or Kurnilo which meant
the root of the seed.

The Mention of “Corned Beef”
goes back to an English Book by Richard Burton in 1621, Anatomy of Melancholy...Beef ..corned young of an ox.