Sometimes a broody hen hatches out a clutch of chickens secretly in the ditch and arrives in proudly with them all clustered around her. So far none this year, so we decided to take matters into our own hands. This week we’ve just had some little chicks hatch out in the [...]

We were at a wonderfully convivial but unconventional wedding recently. The church service was utterly beautiful with music and readings and hauntingly beautiful hymns, but I’m not going to dwell on that because after all this is a food column.
The groom was one of Ireland’s most innovative young artisan food producers, the bride a [...]

I regularly get requests for special diet recipes, gluten free, low sugar and dairy free are top of the list.
Dairy free is easy, to change to extra virgin olive oil is no great sacrifice. There are many delicious cake and pastry recipes where oil can be substituted for butter and we’ve also got lots [...]

It seems like an eternity since I wrote my last column. In those seven days I lived through a whole lifetime of emotions -joy, helplessness, gratitude, guilt, relief, loneliness, deep sadness, not necessarily in that order.
During those seven days my eight siblings and I sat by our mother’s bedside, taking turns to watch [...]