Weekend food with Darina Allen

NEVER before or since does Valentine’s Day create so much excitement as when I was a boarder at the Dominican Convent in Wicklow in the 1960s.

I can still feel the nail-biting anticipation — would I get a Valentine card? The suspense was excruciating as we waited for the postman to arrive.

There was so much at stake, it was incredibly important to one’s image and standing in the class — even one card would ‘do the trick’, but some girls managed to get three or four.