ELLA McSWEENEY, broadcaster and food blogger, talks to EOIN BUTLER
As an 'Ear to the Ground' presenter, where does your interest in farming come from?From my mum. She's from Cornwall originally. Her mother would have lived through the second World War, so my mother was raised very much in that mentality of post-war austerity. When we were kids, she always grew her own food, always composted. We kept ducks and chickens.
You don't sound as though you're from a rural background.I'm not. I grew up in Dublin so, obviously, there wouldn't have been a lot of farms around where I grew up. But there was a field of cows on the road opposite. And there was a large pig farm near us, beside Newpark Comprehensive, where I went to school. Plus, when we were kids, my mum and dad would have brought us hill walking a lot. I'm kind of nosey and I just have an insatiable interest in rural Ireland.
Of course, farming isn't exclusively a rural pursuit. Exactly, if you speak to older people, especially in places like Limerick, they'll remember people keeping pigs in their back gardens. It was a very common thing. Ed Hick, of Hick's Sausages in Dún Laoghaire, is a friend of mine and a big advocate of keeping farming close to urban areas. He used to have an abattoir and he remembers being asked to kill animals for farmers in the local area.
I notice the grizzlier side of farming isn't something you shrink from. Sure. I've really forced myself to face up to my carnivorous appetites. I often have young people ask about raising pigs. The first thing I tell them is not to give the pigs names. I don't name my pigs. They're there for a reason. I'm going to kill them. I did a course in butchery because I really wanted to experience the sensation of eating something that I had killed myself. I do get nasty calls from animal-rights people, but I don't mind that. I admire anybody who sticks by their own principles. What I find much stranger are carnivores who say, "Oh, how can you bring yourself to kill your own pig?" That makes no sense to me.
You're about to appear in a show called 'Stars Go Racing'. Is any animal safe around you?It's a bit of fun, but it has opened up a whole world to me that I would have known absolutely nothing about. Horse racing is a little bit like cricket, it's hard to get into if you don't know anything about it. I mean, I didn't even know what a furlong was before I did this series.
You weren't one of those girls who had a pony growing up?No, I know exactly what you're thinking. I wasn't one of those girls. I always loved animals, but I hated horse racing. If I turned the television on, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, and there was horse racing on, I would probably just change the channel. It was like a black and white film I didn't want to watch. But last year, I filmed a piece about horse racing for Ear to the Ground and I really began to get a sense of how amazing that whole world is.
You worked with trainer Michael Halford. What was that like?Amazing. The final race is on in Leopardstown on August 11th and he probably can't wait for filming to finish because I've just been bombarding him with questions. Honestly, the more time I spent with him, the more I came to appreciate how complex and multifaceted his job is. It's a little bit like being the conductor of an orchestra. He's not riding the horses, he's not running in the race. But he's directing everything that goes on around it. It's a huge responsibility.
One thing I've never understood about horse racing is, who are the crowd cheering for? Is their loyalty to a particular horse, to the jockey?As a non-gambler, is there any reason I should even be watching? Well, if you're interested in betting, that obviously helps. If you're going to bet though, you really need to know a lot about the horses that are coming through. For me, when I'm watching a race now, I'm cheering because I have an appreciation for the incredible athleticism of Johnny Murtagh or Ruby Walsh or Mick Kinane and the amazing athletic training the horses have gone through.
You're filling in presenting the Lotto draw this month. I have to ask, what's the independent adjudicator from Stokes Kennedy Crowley really like?God, where do you get these questions? It's KPMG who do that now. But you know, they asked me to do it and I thought, oh yeah, this should be straightforward enough. But actually, there are millions of euro riding on the draw, so it's very high security. We rehearse the draw and that has to be filmed and, in between, the balls have to be weighed to make sure they haven't been tampered with. So there's a lot more to the job than you might think.
Ella McSweeney appears in the next episode of Stars Go Racingon RTÉ1 on Wednesday at 8.30pm
