The Ballymaloe #LitFest15 was the most fantastically bourgeois thing I have ever seen. Everyone looked so incredibly healthy. I highly recommend it. I went for legendary whisky writer and recovering Glaswegian Dave Broom, who appeared with Tomás Clancy from the Sunday Business Post and Brian Nation, master distiller in Midleton. A good chat about whiskey, with some cracking samples being dished out. Sadly I left it too late to book a ticket, but I was still able to squeeze in at the back and listen in.

The event has an incredible array of speakers and if you love food, drink and just being alive, I highly recommend it. If you can’t get a ticket, just show up and head for the Big Shed, which is filled with food and drink stalls and has a crazy festival atmosphere, and is seemingly perpetually on the verge of breaking into a giant epicurean rave and/or Bacchanalian orgy. Well worth the five euro entry.