So passionate was she about Irish produce, she once carried a heavy suitcase stuffed full of locally grown apples on board a flight to New York where she had been invited to deliver a cookery class.

When Myrtle Allen opened a restaurant in her dining room, the self-taught chef would cook for guests on her Aga range. Today, 50 years on, the Ballymaloe brand is world-renowned.

CASTLEMINE Farm is a paragon of diversification. They keep their own animals, run a farm shop, sell at farmers’ markets, and run school tours and courses in dry curing bacon and making sausages.