darina began the cooking school here in the �*80s on the same estate where her mother—in—law, myrta allener. within a few years of starting the school, people began coming from around the world. so, if you had to define what irish cuisine is, what would you say? well, know, i know a lot of people might have thought we live on corned beef and cabbage, but of course it's changed so much over the years. but the fantastic thing is that here in ireland we have such brilliant raw materials and such great produce. so what we would serve at ballymaloe — our basis of what we do is irish country house cooking, but then with all kinds of influences from all over the world — from india, mexico. because we can grow things — we can grow epazote from mexican food. of course, we grow those curry leaves, lime leaves — all kinds of things. and there we go. and before i leave darina, there is one more thing we must do. that is so nice. it's soft, spongy almost, you know. it's — the taste is lovely. and you made that, just like that. back on the road, i'm heading into cork city. here, old stereotypes of irel

darina began the cooking school here in the '805 on the same estate where her mother—in—law, myrta allen everything from your club kids to your more burlesque to your more classic drag. yeah. and there's the likes of me, say, a girl doing drag. that was certainly be quite unusual, you know, in ireland anyway. change has come here only relatively recently, however. but legendary female impersonator danny la rue came from cork and went on to become one of the 19605' highest—paid entertainers. but that success and acceptance was mostly found in britain after moving there as a child. ireland back then was such a different place, entirely different — different attitudes and different outlook. it was only in, i believe, '93 that homosexuality was actually decriminalised. so i — lots of people that i know from that time upped sticks and moved. they might have gone to the uk or wherever they went, went to a country that was more liberal with its attitudes, or where the community was larger so you could feel that security. and then, of course, ireland has progressed so much. # gonna get married..