On this morning's Ryan Tubridy Show on RTÉ Radio 1, Ryan was joined on the show by The Great British Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood. Listen back below.
Having spent time in Ireland some years ago to film City Bakes, Paul told Ryan that he fell in love with Ireland from the moment he landed, but has a special place in his heart for Dublin.
"I love it. I love the people. I love Dublin, I think there is such a buzz in Dublin when you are walking around."
"I just fell in love with the place," he continues. "I know family-wise there's DNA in my blood that goes back to Ireland, I'm trying to dig around in that to try and find out. I love Ireland, I did a lot of traveling around when I was filming in Roscrea as well, I had friends in Galway and Wexford."
"It's lush. I think lush is a great word. I think you've got this beautiful green scenery with the hills, I just fell in love with Ireland, it is a place that is very close to my heart."
During his time filming in Roscrea, Hollywood says that he baked bread with the monks in the old bakery in the abbey - a tradition he hopes will pick up in popularity.
"The problem is, a lot of the monks aren't picking up the mantle and making bread. They were worried that no one was going to pick it up, I hope someone has because that was 20 years ago now. I went in there and made a few breads with them and we gave it to the school over in Roscrea."
"After a couple of days filming with the monks, I loved it, I was so chilled out," he laughs, recalling the moment that the prior called him to his office and recommended that he become a monk himself.
Unfortunately, Paul was neither Catholic nor single but says he appreciated the offer nonetheless: "I found the whole place beautiful. I was so chilled there."
Reflecting on the religious history of making bread, Paul told Ryan that the discipline of baking goes back tens of thousands of years and is effectively part of our DNA.
"Really, the first sourdough probably goes back about 4,000 years to ancient Egypt," he muses, "but because it's a historical thing, and Biblically it was mentioned, obviously, as a trade along with tax collection and fishing, baking has always been around. It's been in our DNA for so long."
Bringing their doughy chat back to Ireland, Paul told Ryan that while bread has been a staple of the Western diet for "hundreds and thousands of years", it seems that Ireland can't be beaten when it comes to soda bread.
"When I was over in Ireland trying the bread there, it was just spectacular. I was loving it, absolutely loving it," he laughs. "The beauty of Irish soda bread is its simplicity and the speed that you can do it. There's a gratification within an hour if you want to make it that quick. The fact that you can a loaf within an hour from scratch instead of using yeast is incredible."
Turning their food-filled conversation to the humble potato, Paul recalled the fateful time he went to Gallaghers Boxty House in Templebar, describing it as a "beautiful" experience.
"It celebrates the potato, and I tried... it's like a farl, it was delicious. I tried it in Dublin and it was incredible. Paul Rankin introduced me to a lot of the potato farls, which were stunning. He put a bit of bacon in a pan and then he put the farl in there."
To find out more about the history of bread and its place in society, as well as some of Paul's favourite bakes, listen back to the interview in full below:
