The fingers of blame...
QUESTION The late TV chef Monica Sheridan claimed in a special 1987 broadcast that she was fired by RTÉ for licking her fingers. Is there truth to this?
MONICA Sheridan was the first female chef to appear on Irish television, after Telefís Éireann had started in late 1961, but her trademark gesture of licking her fingers while she was cooking or baking did get her fired from the national broadcaster.
When she began her cookery shows, many women were still doing all the cooking at home and men never ventured near the kitchen. Monica fronted two cookery programmes in the 1960s: Monica Sheridan’s Kitchen and Home For Tea. In the following decade, she had a weekly cookery slot on The 70s Scene, a magazine format for female viewers.
In 1965, Monica had won a Jacob’s Award for putting personality into cooking on television. But all the while, she had a controversial habit of licking her fingers during her programmes, while she was cooking or baking; it became too much for RTÉ, which eventually fired her.
Her last TV appearance was a comeback on Evening Extra on RTÉ on December 18, 1987. She was shown stuffing a turkey, but Monica, irreverent as always, remarked: ‘This is the lousiest turkey I ever saw. Do you know what colour it is? Purple! It’s an antique turkey, I think.’
She also confessed the reason why RTÉ had sacked her. Her account tallied with RTÉ’s subsequent version of events.
In her twilight years, she was largely forgotten, apart from two cook books she wrote, Monica’s Kitchen and The Art Of Irish Cooking. They were packed with innovative recipes – she was preparing foie gras and risotto long before they became household words – and peppered with her outspoken opinions.
As just one example, she wrote about boned chicken: ‘Frankly, I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you want to see green in the eyes of women and hear the praise of gluttonous men ringing in your ears, here goes.’
Monica lived her last years at Ratoath, Co. Meath, and then finally in the Ashcroft Nursing Home in Navan, also in Meath, where she died, in the mid-1990s.
The other famous Irish TV chef in the 1960s was Jimmy Flahive, then head chef at the restaurant at Dublin Airport. He often appeared on The Late Late Show, and between 1966 and 1968 he starred in the Home Truths programme. At the end of the 1960s, he also prepared the Christmas cooking supplements published in the RTÉ Guide.
Long before the likes of Darina Allen, Delia Smith and Richard Corrigan became renowned for their cookery shows, first Monica Sheridan, then Jimmy Flahive, had pioneered cookery shows on RTÉ. And by her own admission, and that of RTÉ, Monica’s unhygienic finger-licking did indeed get her fired from television.
Marie Kelly, Dún Laoghaire.
QUESTION Which pub claims to be the oldest in Ireland, and what is its story?
THE oldest pub in Ireland is Seán’s Bar, in the shadow of Athlone Castle, right in the centre of the midlands town.
The pub opened 1,119 years ago, in AD 900AD. It was founded by a man called Luain, who set up an inn on the site, which is close to a crossing of the River Shannon. The area around the pub became known as Baile Átha Luain, or ‘the town of Luain’s ford’. But the long history of the pub remained undiscovered for many centuries, until a local man, Seán Fitzsimons, bought the venue in 1968 and decided to do some renovations.
During that renovation work, walls made of wicker and wattle were found, as well as old coins and other very old artefacts. With the help of the National Museum of Ireland, the age of all this material was verified. Eventually, in 2000, Guinness World Records backed up the claims to the pub’s longevity and declared it was Ireland’s oldest pub.
Another sign of the pub’s age was highlighted during the renovation work. The floor of the pub sloped, from the front door to the back door. The pub is so close to the river it has always been prone to flooding, so the floor was built on a slope. If the floodwaters came in, they would simply drain out of the back door.
Inside the present-day pub, a section of the original wicker and wattle, which formed the first walls of the pub, can be seen affixed to the wall. There’s still a strong sense of history about the pub, which has been added to in recent times with the launch of its own brand of whiskey, produced in west Cork. The reason why the pub launched its own brand of whiskey is that the origins of whiskey happened very close to Athlone. The Annals of Clonmacnoise, the ancient monastery site near Athlone, has the earliest reference to whiskey, dated 1405.
Over the years, Seán’s Bar has attracted innumerable tourists, fascinated by its long history, as well as celebrities such as U2. When the TV show Dallas was at the height of its popularity, in the 1980s, stars Larry Hagman and Linda Gray visited the pub while on a promotional trip to Ireland.
In comparison, the oldest surviving pub in Dublin wasn’t opened until nearly 300 years after Seán’s Bar started up. The Brazen Head in the capital is said to have been founded in 1198.
Jim Flynn, Co. Westmeath.
QUESTION Is it true that Adolf Hitler made all Austrian schoolchildren study a second language other than German?
THERE is no evidence for this claim. After the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938, there was not much time to implement social policy.
Furthermore, language learning was downgraded under National Socialism.
In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler elucidated his theory that foreign language learning was a waste of time for 98% of learners.
He said they should only become acquainted with the basics of grammar, pronunciation and syntax.
His poor record as a foreign language learner may explain this attitude. He had failed at French at school, as he did with many subjects.
The extra time gained through a reduction in foreign language learning was to be used for physical education and ideological indoctrination.
Hitler’s racist view of foreign languages meant schools gave preference to Germanic over Romance and Slavic languages.
French lost its status as a second language in favour of English.
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