In Christmas 1978 Síle and I were living in Kilkenny and broke.
We only had the one child, Caitríona, then about 15 months, and I was on the dole and making a precarious living teaching cookery at night classes and doing catering for parties and delicatessens.

Inspired by the French love of selling good things to eat in pretty containers I approached Nicky Mosse in Bennetsbridge and asked him would he do a special Christmas pot for me which I could then fill with Chicken Liver Pate and sell for Christmas presents.

Nicky produced this, a variation of his spongewear bowls, changing the birds into holly leaves, and produced 100 of these for me for a couple of pounds each.
I filled these with the pate and stuck a little ad in the “Kilkenny People” offering them for sale for a fiver each and held my breath.

Well they sold like hot cakes and at the end of the day we had only one left for ourselves.

And we made enough out of the proceedings to have a slap up Christmas.