Abbeyleix

Super easy from the Dublin area.

And when you're coming back, you can possibly visit Abbeyleix, one of my favorite little towns in the country.

You could also make a stop at the Rock of Dunamase, a beautiful, um, castle ruin that sits kind of on a, a rocky outcropping.

Also within that 90 minutes, you have the Irish National Stud in Kildare, as well as Wicklow.

Yeah

... uh, and, and Abbeyleix goes out on its own, and Ballinakill, and Spink, and maybe they take in Durrow or something.

Ballyroan.

Ballyroan, that is part of the Portlaoise area.

Hmm.

And we create...

And, and Portlaoise, the, the thing around Portlaoise is tightened a good bit, because there is an anomaly in Portlaoise with five councilors from Portlaoise, one from Ballyroan, one from Abbeyleix.

Abbeyleix, yeah.

A lot of people struggling with this.

Uh, but, uh, Paddy in Abbeyleix says, "Peter, I reckon you only made up that piece of music last night." Paddy, if I made up that piece of music, I would be worth a fortune in royalties.

[upbeat music]

Oh, you would?

Okay.

Um, now we are talking about Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon, locked in a house in Abbeyleix with IRA petrol fire bombs landing all around them.

But what happened between, uh, the two of those, behind those closed doors over 48 hours? I am about to introduce you to the author who has imagined and written that story, uh, the writer of A House in Winter, Emily Hourican.

Uh, Emily, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

So she and Lord Snowdon had been married about five years at that stage.

They had their two children, and they were over here on a visit.

His sister was married to John D- Lord Devesi, and they lived at Abbeyleix.

So Margaret and Snowdon were basically on a visit to, you know, her in-laws, and they arrived here on a Friday evening, and they ...

Semifinal, yeah.

Yeah, the one between Steve Bloom and Abbeyleix.

Yeah.

He hopped into his car the minute that was over-

I was stunned.

So, Cullen Greene has a restaurant in Abbeyleix, which is about an hour from Dublin, and he has elevated simple, humble foods like the potato, an egg, peas, beans, into something quite magical.

And in this issue of Confect, you can read about his restaurant, his journey to get to his own restaurant, and there are some recipes you can follow as well, which look divine.

They certainly do.