My Weekend: 'I love a poke around the Farmers' Market on a Saturday morning'

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work:

I’m a wife, mum, and daughter of one husband, two teenagers, and two quite creaky parents, respectively. I live in West Cork in a cottage my great-great-aunt Kathleen bought from the landlord in 1902. I often acknowledge my privilege at living where people go on holidays, but I also think of all the generations of hard graft that went into buying the house — perhaps that’s why the place means so much to me. The teenagers and I travel into Cork city every day for school and work — the kids to Cork Educate Together Secondary School and me to The Butter Museum, where I am the director. I’m passionate about museums, and I suppose that explains why I’m (very honoured to be) the chair of the Board of Irish Museums Association. I love architecture too — and I think The Butter Museum is so fantastic because it’s not only an incredible food history museum — it’s set in and surrounded by the wonderful buildings that formed the butter market — The Firkin Crane and Cork Butter Exchange. I teach architectural history in UCC, and it’s a delight to introduce students to the joys of how to read and understand buildings. I remember reading a description of art history lectures as ‘lights out at lunchtime’ — and there is still a bit of that — but I tell the students we’re essentially going on holidays. We might be turning off the lights on a rainy Cork evening, but then we go to Rome to look at the Pantheon, or we go to Paris to look at the Sainte Chapelle — or one of my favourites — the Veneto to look at Palladio’s Villas.

What is your ideal way to spend a Friday night?

I am essentially an elderly person trapped in the body of a slightly less elderly person. My ideal Friday night is something nice for dinner, open a bottle of wine, and then watch Gardener’s World. I love gardening, and when we lived in Cork I had a blank canvas garden that I turned into a colour wheel. I must admit I was sad to leave it to move west, but the West Cork garden is the next project.

Lie-ins or up with the lark ... which is it for you?

I’m very much a lark and always have been, but five days a week we get up at 6am and are on the road at 7am, so my weekend lie-in sees me getting up at about 8.30am. I don’t like to lie-in really, as I feel like I’m wasting the precious weekend.

Does work creep into your weekend at all?

Inevitably, work creeps into the weekend. When you work in a museum, you work when other people are having their leisure time — whether that be at the weekend or during the summer. I often work Friday lates or have to be in on Saturday or Sunday if we’ve things going on or if another team member can’t come in. Even if I’m not at the museum, I end up doing other ‘work’ because I’m writing an article or a chapter or something. Last weekend I was doing final edits on an essay about the Father Mathew Monument on Patrick Street, which took much longer than I’d meant it to. I recently undertook a project about people who work in museums doing research and writing and found that so often those who work in museums have to research and write in the evening or at weekends. Museum work is a nine-to-five and beyond job, and there just isn’t quiet space to get research done.

If money was no object, where would you head to on a weekend city break? And who would you bring with you?

Well, I love a city break and would leave the house in my socks and go to Rome, or Venice, or Florence — I find it like a cultural recharge and drag the family from church to gallery to church (I think they are often less recharged). In February, the kids and I bolted over to London for one night to see the Wes Anderson Archive exhibition in the Design Museum, and it was such a treat. 

But, at the beginning of the summer I gave my daughter John Gibbons’ The Lie of the Land to read, and she has decided we really should not fly anymore or try to keep it to a minimum. This is making weekend breaks very challenging, and therefore I think we should reinstate the Innisfallen that used to sail from Cork City Centre to Fishguard three times a week. When I was researching the Father Mathew monument and reading lots of newspapers from the 1860s, I was amazed to see you could get a steamer from Cork to Waterford, or Wexford, or even Liverpool or Glasgow. We need to bring all this back —imagine the possibilities.

Closer to home, is there some place you like to head to recharge the batteries?

I do always love a poke around Skibbereen Farmers’ Market on a Saturday morning. I like that it’s food, crafts and a bit of bric-a-brac too. I inevitably leave with something, and I do like to look around Skibbereen — maybe look in the Arts Centre or go to that lovely cafe, Ár n-Áit, that has record decks smack bang in the middle of it.

Do you like to catch up with family/friends at the weekend?

Well, given the creaky parents, I inevitably spend a good bit of time doing things for them. They live in the country and don’t drive anymore, so they need shopping done, recycling and that kind of thing. Any days I have off begin with a conversation with Dad that goes, ‘oh good, you’ve got a day off, could you … ?’

Do you get to indulge any hobbies? Even as a spectator?

I’m not a sporty person. I love crafty hobbies and this weekend, if I hadn’t been trying to figure out when the railings and lamps were put up around Father Mathew and then were taken down, I would have been knitting a tea cosy or starting a patchwork project with my daughter. But Father Mathew won out.

Entertain or be entertained? If it’s the latter, do you have a signature dish?

I really like entertaining, and we did much more of it when we lived in Cork city. I like to cook and have a pretty serious cookbook habit. My go-to dish at the moment is a Paul Flynn recipe from his Butter Boy book. I bought the book to see if it would be good to sell in The Butter Museum (it seemed like a no-brainer) and really liked the format and his chapter introductions. Anyway, his ‘Duck and Coconut Rice with Pineapple and Chili Dressing’ is stupendous. We’ve had to limit how often we make it so we don’t do overkill. We love it so much we went to the Tannery a few weeks ago, and Paul kindly signed the book, and we told him how much we appreciate ‘Spice Bag Duck’. Also I recently bought Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking because my daughter and I got up early one Saturday and watched Julie & Julia, and I became obsessed with making buerre blanc (you can’t have too much butter, right?) Anyway, we made it the other night, and it was fabulous.

We have so many places to eat out in Cork — where are your go to spots for coffee/ lunch/ special meal?

Good Day Deli is so special —the setting, their ethos, their passion for making every dining experience just right. Then in West Cork, I’m very excited about Harnen in Leap by the brilliant people behind Pilgrims, and who doesn’t love the paradise they have created at Toonsbridge?

Sunday night comes around too fast ... how do you normally spend it?

Returning to my pensioner theme — I will be on the couch watching Antiques Roadshow, and if anyone talks when they are saying how much the valuation is they are DEAD.

What time does your alarm clock go off on Monday morning?

I always have to sing The Bangles when I think of how early I get up on Monday (and indeed every weekday) … ‘Six o’clock already, I was just in the middle of a dream’.

Anything else you are up to right now…

Since I’m working late tonight on Culture Night, you all better come along … the brilliant Regina Sexton is working with the Museum to lay out a station breakfast table, and there will be music and tea brack … and butter.

• www.corkcity.ie/culturenight

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