Joe McNamee: Looking forward to a joyous celebration of Irish food in Cork

This is the third year of Litfest’s ‘offspring’, the Ballymaloe Festival of Food

Darina Allen with DJ Marcus O'Laoire & Butter Disco in the Big Shed at Ballymaloe Festival of Food 2025. Picture: Joleen Cronin

As I write, it is a serious struggle to remain indoors at my desk while outside is nothing but glorious sunshine and clear blue skies, a near existential balm after those endless monsoon months that devoured the first quarter of the year. It does however make it especially easy to recall one similar morning back in May 2013 when the sun shone with equal vigour over Ballymaloe House and its surrounds as I questioned my sanity at heading indoors to listen to two men talk on stage for a couple hours when I could instead be swilling iced Pimms and paddling in the sea.

True, it was an intriguing prospect, a chance to hear Claus Meyer, co-founder of Noma, then ‘the World’s Greatest Restaurant’ for three years running, but on such a blissful day, I was struggling to see the attraction. Two hours later, I stumbled back out, blinking in the sunlight, utterly exhilarated by Meyer’s fascinating, inspiring, and often riotously funny talk.