Mary Stritch, bean an tí, Bunratty Folk Park, Co Limerick
MY DAY STARTS at 9.30am, when I come in and change into my costume. I wear a skirt, blouse and white pinafore in a style that would have been worn from 1850 to the early 1900s. Once they are on I'm in character. I'm a bean an tí, or lady of the house, in our Golden Vale house, a beautiful pink house I love because it's got a fine working kitchen.
The first thing I do each day is bake scones for the folk-park tea rooms. Up to 500 of them might be required in a day. If there has been an early coach tour, there will be visitors in the house when I arrive.
I work at a big old kitchen table, and everything is baked the old way, so that people can see how things were done. The first questions are always the same: Do I live in the house? What am I baking? What's it for? People also want to know what we put in our scones and how much. Some people really do think we live in the houses, because everything looks so real and natural.
If we get a chance we bake griddle bread on the fire and butter it up so people can have a taste. People love that, but sometimes you might get a fella taking five or six slices as a kind of cheap lunch, so I have to explain it's just for tasting.
After a cup of tea it's back to make soup scones. After that it's apple pies. Ours are lovely, really deep and using only Bramley apples, which are the best for baking.
I'll have lunch up at the staff hall at 1pm. After that I make Guinness cakes: you bring Guinness, margarine, sugar and fruit to the boil and cool it before adding eggs and flour. It's gorgeous.
The baking finishes up by about 4.30pm or 5pm, and then I start the clean-up. Flour is the dustiest thing you can meet, and there's plenty of it, so there's lots to do.
Though baking is what I do all day, by far the most important part of the job is talking to people. We're supposed to know everything about the house, and we do get tested. People will ask us about the shrubs in the garden, the linen on the beds. Sometimes someone will be a bit cheeky and ask something that can't be answered, but we just look them in the eye and ease over it as best we can. Most people are very nice; they're on their holiday.
We say good morning or hello to everyone who comes in, to break the ice and get them talking. Even though you're baking all day, it's the talking that tires you out. Up to 6,000 people pass through here in high season, and it's very important to me that I'm the same to the last person in at night as I am to the first person in the morning, because they've both paid the same money.
To do the job you have to like baking and like people. I have four children, and when my youngest left for college I said, right, time for to do something for myself. So I did a Fás course in tourism and started here. It was the right decision. I'm here 14 years now and have great fun. And, strangely enough, I still bake at home. I still think there's nothing as good as having an apple pie in the house.