Food For Thought

Irish Food Writers’ Guild announces new members for 2021

It is with great pleasure that we announce the addition of four new members to the Irish Food Writers’ Guild in 2021. Membership is by invitation only to established food writers with an acknowledged and substantial corpus of work. The Guild currently has 70 members.     

The new Guild members announced today, Thursday 3 June, are Lisa Cope of online Dublin food guide All The Food; chef, food writer and culinary lecturer Edward Hayden; professional chef and journalist Janine Kennedy; and Jordan Mooney, Wicklow-based food writer and assistant editor of FOOD&WINE Magazine.

The Irish Food Writers’ Guild was formed in 1990 to promote high professional standards of knowledge and practice among writers about food, nutrition, food history and related matters and to assist in the formulation of links and networks amongst all involved in the food industry.

The last year has been a challenging one for our members. As a Guild, we could have put everything on hold but instead we pushed forward with redeveloping the Guild website, holding meetings online, publishing an ezine to celebrate our 2021 IFWG Food Awards winners and working at nurturing, encouraging and supporting this community of writers.

We are delighted to welcome our new members, who we believe will join with us in supporting excellence and integrity in food writing. 

Caroline Hennessy

Chair

Lisa Cope

Lisa Cope is the founder and editor of online Dublin food guide All The Food, and writes about restaurants for the Irish Times. She has a BA in Journalism from DCU and an MA in Gastronomy and Food Studies from TU Dublin, as well as qualifications in wine from the WSET, and television production from the BBC.

Prior to setting up All The Food she worked as a television producer in Dublin and London, before taking a job as a Marketing Manager for an independent wine company supplying some of London’s best restaurants. A move into restaurant PR and Marketing followed, working with clients including Noble Rot Wine Bar, Bentley’s Oyster Bar and Grill, and the two Michelin-starred Le Champignon Sauvage. She moved home and set up All The Food in 2017.

She lives in Dublin with her husband and two small children, and spends every spare second and penny eating out.

Edward Hayden

Chef and food writer Edward Hayden is well known to audiences from his weekly TV cookery appearances on Virgin Media’s Ireland AM. He also presents a weekly radio show – The Saturday Show with Edward Hayden – every Saturday morning on KCLR96fm.

Edward works as a culinary lecturer in Waterford Institute of Technology, where he is course leader of the Higher Certificate in Culinary Arts Programme. He also is the chef and proprietor of The Edward Hayden School of Cookery in his native Graignamanagh, which boasts a large selection of recreational cookery classes for both the novice and experienced home cook.

Edward has published three cookery books: Edward Entertains, Food to Love (which was awarded the prestigious Kerry Food Book of the Year) and Food for Friends. He is currently putting the finishing touches to his next book, due for release next year.

Edward has a weekly food column with the People newspapers and his recipes appear every week in their publications, across the country. He regularly features recipes in many regional and national publications including FOOD&WINE Magazine, Woman’s Way and Irish Independent Weekend Magazine.

Edward demonstrates all around the country at both a local and national level in a wide range of cookery demonstrations for local fundraising activities, food festivals, and agricultural shows. In 2021, Edward was appointed as a brand ambassador for Kilkenny Tourism.

Janine Kennedy

Janine Kennedy is a professional chef and journalist.

Originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, she lives on her family’s dairy farm in North Tipperary with her husband and three daughters. Passionate about the quality raw ingredients we are spoiled with in Ireland; she enjoys writing about food within the context of agriculture, sustainability, gender and rural affairs.

Jordan Mooney

Jordan Mooney, a Wicklow-based food writer and chef, is the assistant editor of FOOD&WINE Magazine. Having completed a Culinary Arts degree at Dublin Institute of Technology, Jordan worked her way up to sous chef level while studying. During this time, she continued to pursue her passion for food writing by contributing to the student newspaper and interning with FOOD&WINE Magazine.

After graduation, Jordan worked briefly in New York before deciding to come home and commit to a career in food writing. As she began a Masters Degree in Gastronomy and Food Studies at DIT, Jordan continued to work as a chef in Dublin before joining the team at FOOD&WINE, which was a solely digital publication at this point.

She has been with F&W through its various iterations, beginning as an editorial assistant before working her way up to assistant editor level, helping to bring the publication back into print as part of the Business Post’s magazine offerings. She has played an instrumental role in bringing the print version of the magazine to life, working with chefs on recipe spreads and styling photoshoots, while also contributing editorial pieces to the magazine and the Business Post Magazine. In addition to this, Jordan oversees the magazine’s digital presence, working to grow its social media following while publishing daily content on the website.