Since the late 1970s there has been a huge renewal of interest in the area with a new generation of Irish farmers forging the way.
Using traditional techniques and those from our European neighbours, this revival was led by cheese makers like Veronica Steele, whose family produce Mileens cheese in Beara, Co Cork, and fellow Cork woman Jeffa Gill who makes the award-winning Durrus in Coomkeen.
Most farmhouse cheeses are made using only the milk from cattle, goats or sheep which graze in open fields. Take Kanturk’s Ardrahan for example. It’s made solely from the milk of the Burns family’s pedigree Friesian herd which was founded back in the 1920s. Traceability like this can’t be bought.
Dotted all over the country, these farmhouse cheese makers have a lot in common. Located in areas outstanding beauty and with pristine environments, most are based on smaller family run farms where a dedicated team of foodies use their passion to get their products to market.
The cheeses range from soft goats’ cheese like Boilie from Cavan and St Tola from Clare, to Gubbeen, a washed rind cow’s milk cheese made by the Ferguson family in Schull, West Cork, Ireland. And then there’s organic Emmental from Westmeath and traditional blue cheeses from Wicklow and Cashel, in the Golden Vale, the traditional heartland of the Irish dairy industry.
Most Irish farmhouse cheeses are now available in all of the major supermarkets and convenience stores. However if you want to meet the people who make the cheeses, get yourself down to your local farmer’s market and follow your nose!