Liam O' Maonlai of The Hothouse Flowers:
I was a vegetarian for seven years. It was a hand sort of thing. It started when we were fantasising about all the things we'd eat on tour when The Flowers were really big. Everything would have to be totally fresh. I said we'd even have our own livestock on the road. Then I thought: that's horrible. We'd have to slaughter them.
Being vegetarian was actually healthier for us when we were touring because it meant we would make the effort to eat vegetables rather than just grabbing a hamburger.
About two years ago I started courting the idea of eating meat again. I thought that if I was in the company of people who had hunted down a wild animal, I'd want to share it. I wasn't like Peter who couldn't stomach meat. I always could, even when I was a vegetarian. I remember eating kangaroo in Australia. It was a gorgeous, juicy piece of meat.
Then one day I was out with my wife, Aoife, and we went to her mother's house. Her mother had just made a lamb curry. It smelt gorgeous. I thought, rather than it not being eaten, I'll eat it. It tasted good.
Now I eat everything. To eat what is provided is a good philosophy as long as you respect what you eat. We are naturally meat eaters. I'd eat anything from black pudding to black sole now. But I couldn't eat more than an eighth of a steak. It is too much for the body to take.
What isn't good is the mistreatment of animals, and taking the meat we eat for granted. The BSE scare really brought home the amount of interference that goes on in the way animals are raised.
I remember going to a meat factory about 17 years ago with my cousin who is a vet: he was checking the meat for quality. It was sad to see the cattle waiting outside. You could feel the atmosphere of death. The cow is shoved down a chute and gets a bolt between the eyes, then immediately, with no delay, it goes on a conveyor belt and gets cut up.
At home my wife and I eat mostly vegetables and fish; I love eating shark. Even though the sea is polluted, you don't, like to give up. I have a son, Cian, who is 10 weeks old, and when he's older I want to tell him where everything comes from, to educate him about things like veal and battery hens.