Insider View - On 'The Best'

This month Lucy Madden’s hawk-eyed view of Irish life and hospitality focuses on ‘the best’...

A friend has presented me with a packet of recycled plastic clothes-pegs. Not a gift to set the pulses racing, you will agree, but one for which I am very grateful. These pegs, unlike their competitors that snap in the first breeze and gather on the floor of the yard, are capable of keeping a wet carpet on the washing line while the weather does its worst.

This has set me thinking, if you hear of anyone proposing to manufacture clothes pegs, advise caution. These pegs are just so much better than any others, they set a standard to which all others must be compared.

We have examples in the world of hospitality. There are little centres of such excellence as to promote a feeling of dispiritedness in competitors. We all know who they are, in my part of the world the name Neven Maguire springs to mind, and therein a lesson that without the combination of talent, commitment and above all, generosity of spirit, a place is unlikely to survive in these times.

The success of MacNean House & Restaurant, therefore, left me with a sense of bewilderment when I opened the new Good Food Ireland map to find a white desert covering the border counties and pondered how sad it would be for tourists travelling in this area to miss the good food available.

The subject of Guides has been covered on these pages before, but nothing has changed and there are organisations claiming to promote ‘the best’ when in reality an often large payment is necessary for inclusion. Those who are reluctant, or can’t, pay a fee, get left out. And who loses? The traveller, silly.

The success of Neven Maguire must have in part been due to the fact that his business is family run. Now, too, that I’ve become the granny in the kitchen, I can appreciate what a pillar of strength I am. No task is too demeaning for me; I will pot wash and scrub for long hours without a cigarette or tea break. I don’t ask much, I’m unlikely to strike, nor do I demand wages, just an occasional and appreciative pat from the passing chef. I can take over a curdling sauce, or feed an intruding child, I’m even allowed out for a chat with the guests. I’m irreplaceable.

Businesses that don’t have someone like me on the premises are bound to suffer in these difficult times with wages to pay and statutory regulations at the wave of every spoon. I have long held the view that one of the problems in the world is that it is there are too many young people running it. I would think that, wouldn’t I, no longer being young (or anything near it) but you only have to look at the damage done by reckless and greedy young men in the financial world.

A small family business can combine the wisdom of age with the creativity of youth. This was confirmed on a recent BBC Food programme by the numbers of young people who had previously worked in the corporate world now recreating themselves in small family food producing businesses and discovering the advantages of doing so.

One family unit that demonstrates the advantages of working well together resides in Phoenix Park. My seven year old granddaughter Nell wrote to this family cheekily saying that she would love to see around their house. Not long afterwards, an invitation arrived asking her whole family to a party on the premises.

Scrubbed up, and in their best clothes, this family of six drove up to Aras an Uachtarain, where along with other families from all over Ireland, they were treated to some hours of entertainment and a tea about which they are still talking.

But the highlight of the visit was a personal meeting with the President and her husband Dr. McAleese – and Nell was taken in first with her gift of buns – and the graciousness and hospitality shown to all their guests that day impressed and, yes surprised, my family. The President spoke to the assembled families and asked that people should not stay in their little groups but make a new friend.

On the tour of the house (that was on the agenda too) my daughter followed this advice and commented to a woman standing near her that she looked very like the President. “I’m her sister” was the reply, after which the house tour was moved up to another level with an insider’s view on life in the Presidential home.

Nell and her family came home and spoke about their visit with awe. You could say that garden parties are what Presidents are supposed to do – but by all accounts this one was imbued with a generosity of spirit that made the occasion memorable.

And for all the difficulties facing us all now, this is still a country where that spirit is strong. Nobody does it better.

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Together with her husband Johnny, Lucy Madden runs their magnificent 18th century mansion, Hilton Park, Clones, Co Monaghan as a country house which is open to private guests, groups, small weddings and conferences. The restored formal gardens are also open by arrangement. Lucy is a keen organic gardener and also a member of the Irish Food Writers Guild.