Roscrea's Marion's cooks up a wonderful recipe book to benefit hospice team

Marion Flanagan has produced a cookery book featuring over 70 recipes with the proceeds going to the North Tipperary Hospice team.

A teacher by profession, Marion has a life-long passion for cooking and baking. A native of Newcastle West, she came to Roscrea to take up her first teaching post in Corville National School. She loved her time there and speaks fondly of the Principal, the late Diarmaid Fitzgerald. When numbers started to fall in Corville, Marion was offered a job in St Anne’s Special School, which she thoroughly enjoyed for many years.

Currently, Marion is on secondment, working as an advisor to primary schools for the Dept of Education & Skills visiting schools and education centres all around the country. She is still, very much involved in all things education, sitting on several Boards of Management and guest lecturing in colleges of education. However, there is a culinary side to Marion which is never too far from the surface.

Her love of cooking dates back to some treasured memories in her mother’s kitchen at home. They were a large family so there was always food preparation going on. Saturdays were designated ‘baking days’ and the five sisters in the family embraced it. She particularly loved the conveyor belt system of one sister making and rolling out the pastry, another peeling and coring the apples or chopping rhubarb while another greased the tart plates. As the eldest, she says she insisted on placing the pastry top on the tarts, then trimming and decorating the edges.

In that warm homely kitchen, there was always homemade brown bread, scones, crumbles, apple tray bakes and queen cakes available and there was always plenty ‘takers’ for them. She loved the happy atmosphere, the industry and smells in the kitchen.

It comes as no surprise that Marion has compiled this collection of her favourite recipes. She was a finalist in the Calor Housewife of the Year competition, the highlight of which she says, was being interviewed by the late Gay Byrne. She has cooked for companies for several years at the National Ploughing Championships, won first prize in a cookery competition which earned her a wonderful trip to Paris and gave cookery demonstrations in her own kitchen for many years.

In the foreword to her book, Marion says that the global pandemic, Covid-19, restricted us in very many ways in 2020. We were forced to find new ways of working and new ways of living. The world of travel, live theatre and music, sporting events, the joy of meeting up with relatives and friends and much much more were all restricted. Occasions such as weddings, funerals, celebrations and gatherings became entirely different to what we knew and were accustomed to.

However, there was a silver lining. Covid-19 forced us to look at our creative side, to resurrect our hobbies and interests and since all other occasions were out of bounds, it afforded us the time and opportunity for little projects. This recipe book is one such project. While she has embraced cooking and baking all my life, she found herself during lockdown, searching for new interesting, versatile dishes and then thought she would share them with like-minded foodies and cooks. She has passed on her culinary skills to her four children who along with husband Pat have all submitted their favourite recipes for the publication.

“Never underestimate the importance and power of good food,” she says. “I have always believed that there is healing in food.”

BOOK STOCKISTS

‘The Mouth-watering Recipes from Marion’s Kitchen’ was launched on Thursday evening in Tesco Roscrea. The books are on sale at the customer service desk in Tesco, in Walsh’s Home Centre Furniture store, at the Midland Tribune Office on Main Stand from some of the hospice committee members. Proceeds go to Northh Tipperary Hospice, which, like all charities at the moment is struggling to raise funds.