Rory O'Connell is Darina Allen's brother, co-founder of The Ballymaloe Cookery School and one of its main teachers. He worked for many years with Myrtle Allen as chef at The Ballymaloe House Hotel in Cork as well as with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in California. In his thirty years of teaching he has taught many of the now stars of the British and Irish cooking scene: Thomasina Miers, Rachel Allen and Stevie Parle.