Myrtle Allen lecture next week (Thursday May 9). It will be nearly a year since Myrtle Allen passed away at the age of 94 and this lecture will celebrate her contribution to the direction of Irish food. Myrtle set up Ballymaloe in 1964 at a time when organic was not in our vocabulary. She started this restaurant with six kids in tow, and through this restaurant and her columns in the Farmers Journal she would challenge how we viewed and cooked Irish food.