Catherine Fulvio on taking risks, family values and future plans

Doors open and you just have to be ready and be brave enough to go for it – and that’s hard.”

Catherine Fulvio is reflecting on her first screen test with RTÉ. She thought she had “flunked it totally”.

“I drove back from Fermoy saying: ‘Well, you’ve blown your only chance there,’” she recalls. “I absolutely berated myself all the way home. No matter how positive you try to think, it’s very hard to put yourself out there. We all have our insecurities and even though you might try hard, you think: ‘I can’t be that lucky. That can’t happen to me.’ But the next thing I found myself on the Ryanair flight to Sicily to film Catherine’s Italian Kitchen.”

Three TV series and four cookbooks on – including her latest release, Bake Like an Italian – it’s hard to imagine what the effervescent Fulvio was worried about. Radiant – even on this grey morning, she lights up the camera – her down-to-earth nature and farm-to-fork philosophy have seen her join the ranks of celebrity chefs at home and also abroad.

(“I got an email from Swaziland the other day, wanting to know about a saucepan I used,” she exclaims, incredulously, at one stage.)

However, it’s celebrating 10 years at Ballyknocken Cookery School in Co Wicklow – which she developed while pregnant with son Rowan, while daughter Charlotte was just a toddler – that is a real source of pride and driving force to this day.

“I need to do BBC Saturday Kitchen because people will come over and stay in Ballyknocken, and because of that, I can give the local staff that I have their weekly hours,” she explains matter-of-factly.

“So it’s actually more taking responsibility and ownership of running a business that has pushed me forward, rather than the fame. It’s the passion for Ballyknocken and the want for success in Ballyknocken,” she says.

In that regard, Catherine is a Byrne through and through. When her father, Charlie Byrne, a former secretary, county chair and president of his local IFA branch, first took over the family farm, it was 56 acres. Today, Ballyknocken is a 280-acre sheep enterprise.

Charlie is still hands-on (as we prepare for the photo shoot, he trundles past us on a tractor) but Catherine’s younger sister Eithne, a vet, has followed in their father’s footsteps, while her brothers Paul and Carl are also involved.

Central to the farm’s success, of course, was Catherine’s mother Mary, who ran her own turkey-rearing business and traded at the country markets before opening Ballyknocken to guests in the late 1960s, where she pioneered Irish walking holidays.

“It was very much a working partnership and a loving partnership,” smiles Catherine of her parents’ marriage, “and growing up in that was fantastic.”

Catherine describes her relationship with Mary as not just mother and daughter, but “best buddies”. However, in 1997 – just one year after Catherine married her Sicilian husband, Claudio – Mary was diagnosed with oesophageal and stomach cancer.

“She was an absolute trooper, very positive-thinking,” says Catherine. “I remember going to St James’s Hospital one day and she had her reservations book spread out on the bed.”

Sadly, Mary lost her battle at just 56. Catherine still feels her loss greatly.

“One of the hardest things was when my children were born, especially throughout pregnancy. I felt very lonely at that point and when Charlotte was born, it was very upsetting knowing that she’d never see her grandmother. But that’s life and you have to accept it and you have to do your best for your family and your own children and remind them what a fantastic person granny was. And I’m absolutely blessed that granddad is here. He is 80 now, and he’s a fantastic father to me and a fantastic grandfather to the grandchildren.”

Ballyknocken

The year after her mother died, Catherine took over running Ballyknocken, while holding down her full-time job as a marketing manager in a local hotel and commuting from Dublin. Something had to give, but Catherine realised that to make a success of Ballyknocken, she needed to rethink her strategy.

“I knew as a bed and breakfast that we might not have longevity, and the appeal of the walking holidays, a lot of that was down to Mum,” she says.

“The guests who came back came back for my mother – not to meet me – and I knew that her association with what was there was very strong and they were massive boots to fill. I couldn’t see myself thriving the way my mother thrived in that business.”

Then Catherine, having upgraded the house to four-star standard, undertook her most ambitious project in opening Ballyknocken Cookery School in 2004.

“Though, if you asked me to do it now, I don’t know if I would be able,” she admits. “I was expecting, I had a young baby and then I was dealing with builders and project-managing and making sure that the devil was in the detail. But I was just so driven – nothing was going to stop me.”

Reaching the 10-year mark in 2014, through the recession, is testament to Catherine’s drive, but she believes what makes Ballyknocken special is its rural ethos. Teaching people how to cook healthy family meals is her passion, especially in terms of educating children – her own included.

Charlotte is now 12 and recently started secondary school, while Rowan is 10. Family mealtimes are important and, once a week, her father joins them for a traditional dinner, followed by card games.

“We have even bought a professional card-shuffler machine,” she laughs. “I know that sounds very twee and old-fashioned, but for me the family that plays together, stays together. I don’t want to sound like The Waltons, but we try to have that quality time together.”

Making time for herself is another matter. “I find I say yes to everything; and then say: ‘How will I manage?’,” she admits. “But I seem to get through.”

Indeed, apart from her commitments at Ballyknocken, Catherine is a regular on RTÉ’s Today Show, will be a mentor on Paul Flynn’s new programme, A Taste of Success, and is already planning her next book.

She has also signed up for the Strictly Against Breast Cancer fundraiser for Breast Cancer Ireland at the end of November, though jokes that any donations she garners will most likely be “sympathy money”.

“I have two left feet,” she laughs. “The first dance at my wedding was a shuffle. But I’ll do it to the best of my ability ... and after that I’ll probably open Catherine Fulvio’s dancing school!”

But if there’s anybody who can face the music – and dance – it’s Catherine.