| Shortly
after the completion of a new College building on Donovan's Road, a building,
which was to provide the home for Dairy Science in UCC, a young girl from
Monkstown sat in the Lecture Theatre. She listened to a talk given by its
designer, her father who also taught in UCC and wondered about her future.
Would she join the family business or would she study at UCC. However, as
she would say, fate was to take her life in a different direction.
Myrtle Hill married Ivan Allen and as Myrtle Allen took the first steps on a different pathway. Initially this was across Cork Harbour to a new home with her husband on the farm at Shanagarry in East Cork. Some years later the family moved to their present home in Ballymaloe House. The very fact that today, unlike places such as Doreenmacotter or even Gyleen, we do not have to explain where Shanagarry and Ballymaloe are located, is almost entirely due to the life and career of Myrtle Allen. Starting in 'The Emergency' the period of shortages, Myrtle began to develop a different role (for herself) from that which she had expected. Taking cookery courses in the School of Commerce and teaching herself from the text books of the day, she developed her skills and knowledge of cuisine so that by 1962, she had become cookery correspondent of the Irish Farmers Journal, while at the same time opening a restaurant in her new home at Ballymaloe. If this was not enough, Myrtle was to continue to learn through further periods of study at the Cordon Bleu School in London and with Mme Simon Beck in Paris. Even during the sixties, Myrtle had begun to impart her knowledge in the form of cookery courses where she was, of course, joined by her daughter-in-law Darina Allen and so began the famous Ballymaloe Cookery School, which is based today back at Shanagarry. For most of us a life of journalism, restauranteur, hotelier and teacher as well as being a homemaker and raising a large family would be more than sufficient. The quality of her achievements are shown by the range of awards she was to receive. In fact, the awards accorded to Ballymaloe House must be daunting to anyone else in the Hotel Business. They include:
Of course having distinguished ratings in Michelin, Egan Ronan's Good Food Guide, AA Guide and others is almost taken for granted yet these are the awards that many spend their life working towards. But Myrtle Allen's life is special because of one firm conviction. During her travels, she became convinced that the food produced in Ireland is as good as any found throughout the rest of the world. Myrtle Allen became a tireless propagandist for Irish food. In the 1980's she organised and cooked for 'A Taste of Ireland' an Irish food promotion in the Café dEgmont in Brussels. This initial event was so successful that it was repeated in Bloomingdales in New York and the Marriot in Amsterdam and from 1981 - 1985 in collaboration with FBD she ran 'La Ferme Irlandaise' in Paris. Perhaps because of her success as an overseas propagandist for the quality of Irish Food along with her columns in the Irish Times and publication of her Ballymaloe Cook Book by the mid 1980s she was beginning to have an impact on her most difficult audience - ourselves. Think back 20 years, much of our ideas about cuisine in the better restaurants was imported, our cheeses were imitations of those of other countries and much of the farm procedure which was sold locally was hardly attractive and often unwashed. Mytle Allen is one of the key personalities in bringing about a sea change in how we view and use the products of Irish soil and its potential for cookery. The decision to go to Paris and establish an Irish Restaurant caused many to stop and think, particularly when La Ferme Irlandaise was rated amongst the ten top foreign restaurants in Paris. This symbolic move has had far reaching consequences for many in Ireland and surely it was the beginning of a greatly enhanced sense of self worth in the area of food production and cuisine. This timely change in attitude is doubly important as the world economy changes. Irish and even european agriculture is at a cross roads. Do we industrialise even further our farming practices and in doing so remove many aspects of farming from the land while more and more additives are used in agriculture. Thanks to Myrtle Allen and others, we are at last beginning to appreciate that what is grown and reared in Ireland in a comparatively uncontaminated environment is a priceless part of our heritage (as much as the castle and house at Ballymaloe) and she has helped us realise that we change this resource at our peril. In fact, with the encouragement of people of vision such as Myrtle Allen, reliance on quality organic produce maybe the way forward for many Irish small farmers who face today's unprecedented changes in agriculture. Therefore Chancellor, for her contribution to Cuisine in Ireland and for giving us the confidence to believe in our own resources, I would recommend Myrtle Allen for the award of Doctor of Laws.
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