The second Kerrygold Ballymaloe Litfest of Food & Wine ended last night where it all began just 48 hours previously, in the ‘Big Shed’ at Ballymaloe House in East Cork.

THE excitement is really mounting, it’s just a week to this year’s Lit Fest at Ballymaloe, May 16-18.

THE theme of this year’s MAD Symposium, held in a red circus tent in Copenhagen, was guts — this was interpreted in a variety of ways from intestines to raw courage by the speakers.