Also at the presentation of the daughter Deirdre’s Bursary was wonderful wild- life photographer (and old friend) Richard Mills who kindly sent me these shots he had taken.

Deirdre talking to Bob Crowley

And gives her speech of thanks

With her proud (if flushed) Papa.

I had another “Curiosity” piece published in the magazine of this morning’s Irish Times.
This time about a disreputable ancestor: William Martin Murphy

A Family Skeleton

I SUPPOSE WE all have a skeleton in our closet – if not our own personal specimen, at least one in our family history which rattles from time to time as it tries to get out. Mine is William Martin Murphy.

Quite a lot of people will have a notion that his name sounds familiar. His chief claim to infamy was his part in the Lockout in Dublin in 1913.

My connection to him would have been that his father was my great great great grandfather, or he was my great great grand uncle.

Murphy seems to have spent his life losing friends and being a bad influence on people. On the plus side, he founded the Irish Independent , and seems to have organised most of the railways in Ireland. It was, however, with his ownership of the Dublin tramway system that he came head to head with Jim Larkin, and thus entered the history books as the man who turned the key of the great Lockout. Mind you, Murphy had other claims to infamy as well as the lockout.

Being a devout Catholic, he was instrumental in blackening Parnell’s name when the affair with Kitty O’Shea was exposed. He vigorously opposed Yeats’s efforts to find a suitable place to house the Lane Bequest. (As a result, that legacy is still floundering in the middle of the Irish Sea).

There is no doubt that he exploited and underpaid many of his workers and was, in terms of art, a philistine. But, as well as organising Ireland’s train network system, he founded many industries that still stand today.

He was, by his own lights, a nationalist and refused a peerage from Queen Victoria at one stage in his career.

The final piece of information I have about him was gathered only last year. It appears that Samuel Beckett carried a candle for a beautiful young woman for many years, much as Yeats did for Maud Gonne. This girl, Eva Murphy, was also in love with Samuel while he was a student. She was Catholic, Beckett was Protestant.

Her father would not hear of the alliance, and separated the young lovers. Young Beckett was heartbroken. Who knows how this may have affected his future writings. The young woman’s father was, of course, William Martin Murphy.

I blame Paul Duggan for this.
It was he who arrived to us in France at Halloween with muffin cases and told me he wanted me to teach him how to make muffins.
Now muffins were something, after a few attempts to eat the things in “healthy” cafes, which I avoided and would, up to that moment, have happily lived out my life without ever attempting to cook one.
They were, in my experience, dry uninteresting, teeth drying, stodgy examples of the modern bakers lack of finesse.
Sometimes blessed with a rare sprinkle of dried blueberries which like the bicycle cake* (see note) of old, were scattered thinly throughout, without in the least relieving their similarity to impacted cotton wool.

But, Paul had handed down a gauntlet so I decided to give it a lash.

Unfortunately we didn’t have any of the ingredients for modern american muffins in the house in France so my first attempt was made using yeast as a riser in place of bicarbonate of soda and bread flour instead of soft cake flour.
The results (we also put in some diced apple and walnut) were fairly grim but, strange to say, were infinitely better than any commercial ones I had ever tasted.

When I got back to my own kitchen in Ireland I started to do a bit of research into the muffin.
The original crumpet type, which were sold in Thompsons of Cork in my youth, still exist in America and are known as English Muffins.
That these are origins of the modern cakes are demonstrated in their leavening of bicarbonate and buttermilk, much like we make soda bread here.

They are, I quickly discovered, at their best within a few hours of being made.
Commercial muffins are packed with preservatives which is the reason why they taste so disgusting.

I found Nigella’s “Domestic Goddess” to be the best source of all, and her addition of butter makes a huge difference.
From her I adapted and pinched my first effort which I will give below as Christmas Walnut Muffins.
They were superb, light, flavoursome and moist.
That in turn sent me off on a quest to discover a definitive Dwyer twist on the muffin and,using Nigellas basic mix, I came up with my Apple, Orange and Ginger Muffin.
These are wonderful.

I purchased for myself some little silicone muffin cases which make the job very easy.

Now the time of year is upon us when the carol singers come out and I traditionally do something Christmassy in Ardkeen Stores to justify my position as store Food Consultant.
Fired with my new muffin skills I decided to spend yesterday afternoon there making muffins.

They went like hot cakes.
I hadn’t a batch out of the oven but people hovered over me like hungry vultures- in fact I am missing one of my little silicon cases, eaten I suspect by a savage housewife.
I was thinking I would make up four or five batches, in fact I made up seventeen! And they were still looking for more.
Here are the recipes for both, which I dedicate to Paul Duggan, who started me on my muffin quest.

Orange Ginger and Apple Muffins
For 12

225g (8 oz.) plain Flour
1 ½ Teaspoons Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Ground Ginger
½ Teaspoon Bread Soda
1 large orange (or 2 medium)
3 Pieces of preserved Stem Ginger (in syrup)
2 Cooking Apples (peeled cored and diced)
75g (2 ½ oz.) Caster Sugar
1 Egg
60g. (2 oz.) Butter-melted
200ml (7 oz.) (approx) Buttermilk
2 Tablespoons slivered Almonds

Heat oven to 200C 400F gas 6

Take the zest from the orange and squeeze the juice.
Make this up to 250ml (9 oz.). with the Buttermilk
Chop the ginger into little dice
Whip together the egg, melted butter, and buttermilk and Orange .
Stir in the chopped ginger.
Mix the flour, baking powder, bread soda ground ginger and sugar in a bowl.

Make a well in the centre and pour in the liquid ingredients and the diced apple.
Incorporate them together gently.
(Do not beat to keep the mixture light.)
Spoon the mixture into each muffin case.
Sprinkle the slivered almonds on top
Bake at the set temperature for 15 minutes.

Let them cool before taking them from their cases.

Christmas Walnut Muffins
For 12

Filling;
(100g) 4 oz. Chopped Walnuts
60g (2 oz.) Brown Sugar
1 ½ Teaspoons Cinnamon
60g (2 oz.) Butter Melted

Muffins
225g (8 oz.) plain Flour
2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
½ Teaspoon Bread Soda
75g (2 ½ oz.) Caster Sugar
1 Egg
60g. (2 oz.) Butter-melted
250ml (9 oz.) Buttermilk

Heat oven to 200C 400F gas 6

First mix together all the filling ingredients.

Whip together the egg, melted butter and buttermilk.
Mix the flour, baking powder and bread soda in a bowl.

Make a well in the centre and pour in the liquid ingredients.
Incorporate them together gently.
(Do not beat to keep the mixture light.)
Put a scant tablespoon of the mixture into each muffin case.
Then put in a teaspoon of the filling .
Then top up with the rest of the muffin mixture.
(If you have any nut mixture left over ypou can sprinkle it on top.)

Bake at the set temperature for 15 minutes.
Let them cool before taking them from their cases.

note *Our name for the currant cake found in some households where the currants were so rare that if you found one you would have to cycle a mile till you hit on another.

From yesterday’s (Cork edition only) Examiner.

The Dents de Lanton in the Alps over Lac d’Annecy photographed from Paul and Isabel’s garden, at sunset, in the summer of 2006.
I have a feeling they would be covered in snow now.

Last night in the Everyman Theatre in Cork daughter Deirdre was presented with her bursary.
This was a substantial award, €14,000, to be used in her further education and which will be used to pay for her time in the Royal College in Cardiff.
They brought over the amazing Bob Crowley to present the award so all the cameras, lights and reporters were there.
As someone who left Cork and its theatrical scene forty years ago, a thin fair haired young man, it was my delight for the evening to re-introduce myself to people I had known in the sixties.
I was fairly reliably greeted with a “On my god you are not!”.
I suppose I should be offended but not at all, I reckon I left the vanity behind in the dressing room along with the greasepaint.
It is ironic really but one of the very few theatrical people I kept contact with was Pat Murray himself.
Pat was always in demand as a set designer and used to appear in Waterford from time to time. He also was on the Arts council when they sometimes had their meetings in my restaurant.
I remember the first time I saw him in Dwyers he was at a table when I came out to do my chef’s “tour” at the end of the night.
We were both amazed to see each other and Pat said “Jesus, Martin Dwyer !
I should have guessed, the place looks like a f*****g stage set!”
Last night was a great night for the daughter, well covered in the Examiner she tells me but not in the one that got to Waterford.

If my daughter Caitriona ever was tempted to deny me, the joy she displayed in the invention of the outragious pun with she has captioned the offering she found on the internet this morning would prove her wrong more effectively than any genetic footprinting.
It must be the ultimate Christmas use for the many sprout haters in this world (which I am not, I hasten to add)
It does seem to be an apposite start to the Christmas season.

Caitriona found the wreath making blog here via housemartin here

I have never doubted that my schooldays, particularly my secondary schooldays were the unhappiest days of my life.
I was a student in Christian Brothers College in Cork and trained in a regime by teachers who, with some exceptions, supposed that the only way to get us to learn was to apply frequent and painful beatings with a leather strap.

As a result we were a fairly subdued lot, never prone to any display of revolt.
I can remember only one moment of anarchy in my time in secondary school.

It must have been in about 1965, I was 16 and we were in fourth year, about to sit the inter cert.

On this day the brother in charge of us, (whom I will call Brother de Sade, a particularly nasty sadist with a joy in corporal punishment), had to leave us for a time to our own devices.
He gave us the usual reams of work to do and left with the usual threats-“Any boy foolish enough not to have this finished by the time I get back can be assured that I’ll take the skin off his hands”

It started off easily enough.

One boy started to whisper the words of an american rhyme which had become a hit that year.

“My mother told me , If I was Goody
That she would buy me, a rubber dolly”

Then something strange, exciting and miraculous happened.
All the boys in the class started to join in with the words
still sotto voce but louder because of the numbers.

“My auntie told her, I kissed a soldier
Now she won’t buy me, a rubber dolly”

But then something even more thrilling happened.
One of the boys, and it was one of the swots, one of the quiet ones,
(I can even remember his name, he was called Anthony Fleming!) started to raise his voice for the chorus;

“Three Six Nine, the goose drank Wine
The Monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line”

Then we all joined in, gradually getting louder and louder;

“The line broke, the monkey got choked
And we all went to heaven in a little row boat
Clap Clap”

At that stage brothers, teachers and passing startled boys started to congregate outside the door, peering at us in wonder.
Some of the teachers made valient efforts to calm us down, to silence us but at this stage we had totally become empowered;

“My Mother told me, If I was goody
That she would buy me a rubber dolly”

And then we began to realise that we were not alone.
That other classes along the corridor were starting to sing too!

“My auntie told her, I kissed a soldier
Now she won’t buy me a rubber dolly”

The door of our classroom was flung back with a crack and Brother de Sade swung into the room.
He banged his leather on the desk with a noise like a pistol shot and scarlet in the face becgan to scream at us to stop.

He hadn’t a hope in hell, we weren’t finished yet.

“Three Six Nine, the goose drank Wine
The Monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line”

and then the whole secondary school together

“The line broke, the monkey got choked
And we all went to heaven in a little row boat
Clap Clap“,

And then. as if carefully orchestrated, we stopped.
We sat down.
Brother De Sade was left floundering and ranting and purple faced.

Now, and this is the strangest part of the whole episode, I have no longer any idea what happened next.
There really was no way we could all have been beaten, but, even if we had, it would have made no difference.
We had tasted freedom and were now immune from pain.
It was, without doubt, my very best moment in school.

It has been a strange old month.
I am not convinced yet how much of the strangeness is due to seeing the entire month through Apple Juice and Ballygowan rather than through my more normal white wine haze.
On the plus side have been the mornings, hangover free and-that other aspect of hangover which we forget about-depression free.
There also has been the satisfaction of being holier-than-thou, of people’s incredulity that I could hack a booze free month.
I think the most satisfying aspect is how painless it has been. How in nearly every social occasion (and there were loads this month!)I enjoyed myself as much as ever, and was as loud and boisterous as I normally am.
Another definite positive is that my creativity soared upwards by about ten points on the c scale, my amount of blogs for the month virtually doubled.
(And my hits on my site , as a result I’d say, became my highest ever)
But there were downsides too.
I sorely missed that moment after a tough day when a chilled wine or Kir gave one a short cut into instant relaxation.
There were also moments when being surrounded by drunken friends when sober oneself did tend to make the tolerance levels sink to just under bearable.

I do know some friends will be delighted when I go back on the sauce tonight
(for the purposes of abstinence I follow the pre-Gregorian calendar of four week months.)
They will I think be relieved that a certain pompous observer has gone away.
I’m not so sure.
There is a strong tradition in my family of overindulgence in alcohol, as I said at the beginning of the month what I would love to do is cut down rather than abstain.
I still have to find out if this is possible.
In the meantime I have a bottle of Picoul de Pinet chilling in the fridge.
Sláinte.