In January 2025, Hannah Neeleman—the Utah farmer, former ballerina, and social media star behind Ballerina Farm, followed by roughly 10 million people on TikTok alone—packed up her bags with her husband Daniel, their eight children, and her own mother, and flew the whole household across the Atlantic. Their destination wasn’t a spa or a city break. It was a 12-week chef’s course at Ballymaloe Cookery School, tucked into the East Cork countryside on a 100-acre organic farm in Ireland. It was their second trip to the school—they’d visited the previous autumn too, with Neeleman posting at the time that the way the school worked in harmony with the land, cooking simply from what it produces, felt like a natural extension of everything she already believed in. Here’s what to know about the cooking school.
The Overview
Ballymaloe Cookery School sits at Kinoith, a Regency house on a 100-acre certified organic farm in Shanagarry, County Cork, about two miles from Ballymaloe House hotel. The two properties are separate businesses but share the same family: Darina Allen founded the school in 1983 with her brother, Rory O’Connell, having married into the Allen family that ran Ballymaloe House itself. It has since grown into arguably the most famous cookery school in Ireland, drawing professional chefs and total beginners alike from around the world.
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The History
The story begins with Myrtle Allen, whose farmhouse cooking at Ballymaloe House first elevated Irish country cuisine to genuine gourmet status from the 1960s onward. Her son Tim married Darina in 1970, and the couple moved into Kinoith—a house originally built by the Strangman family and later bequeathed to Ivan and Myrtle Allen—where they spent years restoring its gardens while running a farm shop on the side. In 1983, that groundwork became a school. In 2023, Darina stepped back from day-to-day running of the school, handing the reins to Rory O’Connell while launching a new venture of her own, the Organic Farming School, on the same land.
The Courses
The school’s best-known offering is the 12-week Certificate Course—the same programme the Neelemans enrolled in—designed for serious cooks and career-changers who want to earn a living from their cooking. Beyond that flagship course, the school runs more than 60 shorter options across the year: half-day demonstrations, weekend workshops, and evening classes covering everything from baking and preserving to butchery and foraging, alongside seasonal events like the Ballymaloe Literary Festival of Food and Wine. Prices for the shortest sessions start modestly, making the school accessible well beyond its most famous alumni.
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Accommodation
Residential students on the longer courses stay in a cluster of converted farm outbuildings known as The Cottages, renovated over the decades by the Allen family into comfortable, unfussy student housing right on the grounds. For shorter courses, guests typically arrange accommodation locally, with Ballymaloe House itself just a couple of miles away as one option among several in the area.
Things to Do
Beyond the kitchen, Kinoith’s organic gardens are open to visitors year-round and are almost as celebrated as the courses themselves. The on-site Farm Shop stocks the school’s own produce, preserves, and cookbooks alongside other local organic goods, while the Garden Café Truck serves light lunches through the summer months beside the organic farm itself.
Why People Love It
Ballymaloe’s current cultural moment isn’t really about one influencer family, even one as visible as the Neelemans. It taps into a much broader hunger—visible everywhere from TikTok to travel-booking trends—for a version of the good life built on land, patience, and homegrown food.
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