When I demur, she’s insistent. ‘Not everyone likes an “ambitious” woman. When it’s said about a man it’s always in a good way. But a woman? Not so much. If I’d failed, the embarrassment would have been as painful as the financial loss.’
But she didn’t fail. She insists – correctly – that a large factor in her success was timing.
In 1997, when she married Kinsella, the Cork branch was up and running. At this point, Kinsella left Irish Dairy International to work as a salesman for his wife’s company and, less than a year later, Johnny Casey joined them.
By the early days of the new millennium, there were seven stores nationwide, three of them – Dublin, Malahide and Kilkenny – featuring cafés. During this time, barely seeming to break stride, Parnell also had two children: her only son Ferdia in 1998 and her eldest daughter Saoirse in 2002.
When the crash hit in 2008, PiG had sixteen outlets around the country, including a fine-dining restaurant next to the original site on South Anne Street.
In some circles, PiG was known as ‘The Land That Recession Forgot’. But Parnell is quick to disabuse me. ‘The recession hurt us, the way it hurt every business. Eight of our premises shut.’
The recession may have passed but the world has changed beyond all recognition since PiG first opened its doors. How has it remained relevant when the most obscure ingredient can be sourced on the internet and your local Centra stocks Scotch bonnet chillies?
‘Very high-quality exotic fresh produce and diverse cuisines. In the last five months, we’ve showcased Uzbeki, Eritrean and Hawaiian food. We’ve also featured Gujarati cooking, instead of generic Indian, and Shandong instead of Chinese. And every launch is supported by the cookery school.’
Ah, yes, the cookery school, perhaps Parnell’s greatest achievement. It’s a mystery how she continues to woo highly strung, over-scheduled, big-name chefs to little old Dublin, but continue she does. In the last month, Francisco Madarona, the chef-patron of Oro Sucio on the Yucatan peninsula, did two days – immediately sold-out – of demos of his Modern Mayan cuisine. Considering that Oro Sucio is fully booked for the next eighteen months, this is quite an achievement.
So how did she manage to bag Francisco?
‘I asked,’ is her reply.
Hmm. I suspect it’s not as simple as that. However, she has a unique combination of charm and dogged determination. It may not hurt that she’s a very attractive woman. She’s grown into her youthful toothiness, her hair is a sharply cut bob in an expensive-looking golden blonde and, considering she’s forty-nine, her skin is flawless, not a wrinkle in sight.
She’s refreshingly up-front about her forays into cosmetic surgery. ‘No Botox, but I’m a divil for the laser. I got all my freckles lasered off – it hurt like you wouldn’t believe but it was the happiest day of my life. Now and again I get the face zapped off me to stimulate collagen. Excruciating but no pain, no gain.’
Speaking of pain, experts agree that if she’d sold PiG in 2008 – apparently three buyers with deep pockets made overtures mere weeks before the worldwide crash – she’d have made an eye-watering amount. But she turned them all down – too much of a control freak?
Or perhaps she’s not motivated entirely by money. It’s common knowledge that her staff are well taken care of. Which may explain, despite her reputation as ‘a benign dictator’, the almost cult-like loyalty she inspires among her employees.
It seems as if she lives a charmed existence, but we must remember that her first husband died when they were both only thirty-four. They’d been married less than seven years and had two young children.
Rory died of an aneurysm. ‘It was so horribly sudden.’ Her face clouds. ‘I can’t describe the shock.’
Since then, perhaps she finds it hard to trust that happiness will last? It would certainly explain her non-stop drive.
She has never spoken about when her relationship with Johnny Casey started. He was working for Parnell when Kinsella died, and she’s credited Casey with keeping the business going during those months after her bereavement.
It was only when Parnell became pregnant with her third child, less than three years after the death of her first husband, that she went public with Casey. They married that same year, a low-key register office affair, compared to the 120-person extravaganza of her wedding with Kinsella.
According to several sources, Rory’s parents and two sisters, Keeva and Izzy, have never forgiven her.