Aspiring chef hopes that he has turned the tables

"Make that restaurants," says Richard Healy (17), a student at the Terence MacSwiney Community College in Knocknaheeny, Cork

"Make that restaurants," says Richard Healy (17), a student at the Terence MacSwiney Community College in Knocknaheeny, Cork. He is not planning to open just one restaurant - he wants a chain.

Parts of the north side of Cork have fared badly in the media, as if nothing happened there but car theft and drug-dealing. Few seem to bother about the excellence of the schools, the community spirit and the self-help efforts that have been undertaken to improve areas such as Knocknaheeney.

It takes guts for a first-year student to put his name down for home economics when all his mates are into woodworking. Being one of only two boys in a class of girls does not help - that and the comments from the macho men in the schoolyard.

But Richard did not mind. He knew cooking was something he would love. When his mother was in the kitchen he would hang around and try to be creative with the left-overs.

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Pastry was his thing. Now, a year before he sits his Leaving Certificate, he has already plotted his career. It is a triumph for him, his school and Knocknaheeny.

His teacher, Ms Geraldine Lynch, head of home economics in the school, spotted early on that Richard had talent and encouraged it. "His dishes were the first into the oven and the first out. He definitely had something and he was very creative," she says.

Ms Lynch entered him in cooking competitions. He was runner-up in the BIM regional final in Killarney last February. At the Cork Institute of Technology in April he won the Tesco regional cooking final.

Earlier this month he won the schools competition at the Bantry Bay Mussel Festival and then, at McKee Barracks in Dublin, he took the gold medal in the Tesco All-Ireland Senior Cook of the Year competition.

He was told then by the Army that one option was to join its school of catering. But the likelihood is that after school he will go on to the Cork Institute of Technology school of catering.

At school it has had a ripple effect. "Other lads are now getting involved. When I started, it was a bit of a joke. I think the tables have turned," he says.

To reach the final Richard had to prepare a three-course meal for under £12. Next autumn he will join the kitchen staff at Drimcong House in Co Galway as part of his training.