By Christopher Windrum
Christopher Windrum talks with Ciarán Dunne, who runs the Instagram page Fooddunneright, about how he started and grew Fooddunneright.
Ciarán Dunne, otherwise known as Fooddunnerigh on Instagram, started his food page after leaving his job on Paddy’s Day in 2020. Over a year and a half later he is at 11’500 followers and his page keeps on growing.
Ciarán speaks to thecity.ie about how he started Fooddunneright. “The main reason why I started my Instagram page Fooddunnerright was because I have done cooking for a long time, but it was quite basic. It was never anything exciting, it was never extravagant or serious. Then around December 2019 I started cooking a bit more, trying new recipes and had people hounding me out of it saying you should start a page. They were saying this food looks really nice and that you should post your recipes.”
Ciarán worked in Halfords before Fooddunneright, he left Halfords because he had another job lined up, but then a week later Covid struck and that job was gone. Then the night of him leaving his job he decided to create Fooddunneright, because a few of his close friends encouraged him to do so.
“I said I’ll do it, why not and then I started my page that night. Now fast forward a year and a half later and now that’s where I am now. This only happened because a few people hounded me out of it. I only thought it would last for a few weeks, but it snowballed from there.”
Here is a link for one of his posts if it can be put on the website
Ciarán found it weird that people followed him on Instagram saying that, “anyone that knew me or followed me from the start knew from the stories that I still think people are weirdo’s for following me. I never thought it would last this long because I didn’t expect more than 100 followers.”
Normally Instagram influencers have a way to grow their page, like there are seven steps to get popular on Instagram but Ciarán didn’t follow any of them and grew it just with his personality.
“There are definitely steps you are supposed to do to gain traction and engagement, but I haven’t looked or are interested in them. The honest answer is I have just been making food and have just been posting on my stories.”
“I have just been myself through this entire time and I haven’t been lying. I haven’t tried to put up a front or create a character. I just post what I want and that would be the only way I could say that I grew it because I was myself online.”
“Yeah the only thing I can put it down to is personality. Like in the last few weeks or so I have gotten a lot of new followers through my roastie’s post. The only reply that I’ve gotten from new followers was we came for the roastie’s but we stayed for you, because they said they find me funny. Like I don’t find myself funny I think I’m quite annoying, but apparently people find me funny.”
Ciarán has done a few competitions for his followers where they would win a batch of cookies as a thank you to them for following him.
Here is a link for one of his posts if it can be put on the website
Fooddunneright is at 11’500 follower (at the time of writing) and Ciarán can’t believe that he got this popular. He is still believes that one day this will all come to an end, saying, “This will stop being funny one day and people are going to realise, I’m just being an idiot, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
Ciarán’s favourite food to cook is carbonara because the process of making carbonara is really simple and it can result in a really fancy meal.
Like most of us Ciarán loves a bowl of cereal and says it’s his favourite food, and he would eat it all day every day if he could.
Here is a link for one of his posts if it can be put on the website
Ciarán has done a good few promotions with local restaurants and takeaways. One of the main restaurants Ciarán has done promotions with is Joe’s in Coolock.
Ciarán explains why he collaborates with Joe’s, “it’s been a place where I’ve eaten there since I was five. I can remember my Ma bringing me up there. That ends up driving a few people their way and I love that.”
Ciarán seems to not be affected by the negatives of becoming popular on Instagram.
“I’m sure other influencers would say trolls and stuff, but I don’t really see that as a bad thing. You can see on my story that I get trolls direct messaging me, but I just find it funny. A troll doesn’t bother me and never will.”
Ciarán over the last year and a half has gained a huge following on his page Foodunneright. It hasn’t been all that easy with him losing a new job at the start of the pandemic and this page was first used as a way to cure his boredom. Now Ciarán uses it as a way to show off his cooking skills and to share it by taking photos of his delicious food.