Regina Sexton

Regina Sexton brings a historian’s eye to food coverage, using everyday dishes, brands and rituals to explain how food, culture and society intersect. She is a food and culinary historian, university lecturer and programme manager in food studies and Irish foodways who writes for RTÉ on the history and culture of food and appears as a broadcaster on food topics.

Everyday foods as windows on Irish history

Sexton’s RTÉ work treats familiar foods as entry points into longer stories about social change rather than as lifestyle content. In her Brainstorm essay on the Irish grá for ice cream, she uses the history of a popular treat to chart how tastes and habits develop over time, framing ice cream as part of a wider cultural narrative rather than a trend piece. In another Brainstorm article, she explains how the ESB used Christmas to sell electric cookers in the 1950s, showing how a state utility enlisted festive food and Ireland’s first celebrity cook to promote new kitchen technology. Across these pieces she links food to technology, advertising and domestic life, making clear that recipes and products sit inside larger systems of power, commerce and tradition.

Festive rituals, marketing and domestic life

A recurring thread in Sexton’s coverage is the way festive food rituals are shaped by commerce and media. Her article on the ESB and electric cookers sets Christmas dinner at the centre of a post‑war marketing campaign, highlighting how corporate messaging and celebrity endorsement redefined what a “modern” household looked like. She has also explored the history of Easter eggs for RTÉ’s Brainstorm, then unpacked that research on air for RTÉ Radio 1, treating a seasonal product as a way to discuss religious symbolism, industrial production and changing consumer expectations. This focus on holidays and seasonal foods allows her to move between symbolism, household practice and the strategies of brands and institutions in a way that a standard food feature rarely does.

Broadcast explainers on food traditions and industry

Sexton extends this historical, systems‑level approach into broadcast slots, where she is often positioned as an explainer of why Irish food culture looks the way it does. On RTÉ Radio 1’s business and current affairs programmes, she has discussed topics ranging from Easter eggs to bakery and confectionery, pairing economic and industry angles with deep background on how these products entered the Irish diet. On RTÉ’s History Show, she has guided listeners through mid‑19th‑century food culture in Cork, drawing on archival letters to reconstruct what people ate and how famine and scarcity reshaped local foodways. These appearances emphasise her role not as a critic or trend‑spotter, but as a context‑builder who can connect present‑day markets and controversies to longer historical arcs.

Academic depth and food‑policy perspective

Sexton’s journalism is underpinned by an academic career focused on food history and culture. She is a food and culinary historian and lecturer at University College Cork and programme manager of a postgraduate degree in food studies and Irish foodways, bringing formal research training and teaching experience to her public‑facing work. Her scholarship includes work on Ireland’s traditional foods and local food cultures, grounding her RTÉ pieces in a detailed knowledge of regional dishes, ingredients and historical sources. She is a member of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland’s Food Safety Consultative Council and a member of a national food guild, which gives her regular exposure to regulation, food safety and industry practice alongside historical research. Professional profiles describe her as a food writer, broadcaster and cook, signalling that she moves comfortably between academic, media and practical kitchen settings when she covers food. The result is coverage that treats food as a serious subject of study while remaining accessible to a general audience.