As we talk about her Galtee award for the best breakfast in Ireland and her designation as the Little Gem winner for 2002/3 by the RAC, I dig into the Bay Lough cheese again: breakfast pancakes with butter sauce and bananas; jellied grapefruit served with raspberries and melon; croissants baked from frozen; soda bread; scrambled eggs garnished with smoked salmon, varieties of fresh eggs and when wanted, the full Irish which, given her talent, is a varied affair in itself.

Dinners – for which she is renowned – are described as relatively uncomplicated: home-made chicken pate, a sorbet of strawberries and oranges, local vegetables in season, a leg of lamb brought to the table so guest can carve for themselves, a pavlova made with whiskey, coffee and almonds. Just a sample – it changes every day. To justify this indulgence she sends her guests to Cashel, to Blarney, to Kilarney and Killaloe, to Bunratty and the Burren and to Annette O’Donnell’s stables in the Glen of Aherlow.

She sends them to Kilmallock too. Here a little early for my meeting with Imelda, I shame myself into strolling across the street and down to the Loobagh river where a footbridge leads to St. Saviour’s Dominican friary, begun a FitzGerald foundation in 1291. I have passed this way again and again, always promising to stop and never doing so. Now I see what I’ve been missing: the choir, the tall five-light east window, the cloister garth, the exquisitely carved 13^th-century reticulated window.