In The Media

Just a reminder to all that we are not taking any farm tours until Wednesday 5th September. We will book dates after that if you contact us by e-mail info@st-tola.ie  Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays only! Thanks!

FROM THE IRISH INDEPENDENT 26/03/2018

Mon 26 Mar 2018 at 02:30
As a young lad growing up on the Beara Peninsula in Cork, John Harrington's sister Angela used to tease him about being in love with the girl pictured on the Calvita cheese box. In June 1992, he walked into the Hillgrove Hotel in Dingle, and Siobhan Ni Ghairbhith's blonde hair and blue eyes reminded him of that girl. "She was drinking a pint, and I thought, 'The Calvita girl has grown up'," he laughs.
On that basis, it's ironic that Siobhan and John would go on to run a cheese company, but the first hurdle was getting past her friend Donal's vetting. "Donal got talking to John and at the end of the night, he said, 'He's alright Siobhan, he'll do'," she says.

Siobhan was living in Galway at the time, and she and John discovered they had a lot in common. They had both trained as teachers, for example, and had fathers who were county councillors. A few weeks later, John visited Galway and phoned and asked her out for a drink. She dragged her flatmates along, as she wasn't sure if she'd recognise him or even if she wanted to spend time with him. Luckily it all went well and she gave the girls the nod to go home. "He began to grow on me," she says.

Siobhan (50) grew up in the village of Inagh in Clare, and initially worked as a primary school teacher, like her parents, Flan and Mairead. She took a career break as she developed an interest in food, and after courses in marketing and PR, she left teaching altogether and worked at wholesaling local and regional food products, one of which happened to be St Tola Irish Goat Cheese.

When she met John, she liked that he gave her confidence and ideas around developing her career in food. He also introduced her to meditation, mindfulness and self-awareness, which she found interesting. John (55) comes from an entrepreneurial family and his mum Mary ran the local post office. He trained as a PE and Irish teacher and taught for a year, but left as the entrepreneurial streak won through, which probably worried his mum as she was keen for her nine children to have steady jobs. She's still going strong, but his dad, Donal Dan R, passed away aged 95 in January. John and his brother Flor established Kush Shellfish in Kenmare in 1987, and still run it together today (www.kush.ie).

Siobhan and John had a long-distance relationship for three years and then she moved to Kenmare. "Siobhan is a very strong character, and while she has a bohemian streak, she's very sensible and has much more common sense than I have," says John. They spent a good few years "gallivanting around the world" and John loves that Siobhan galvanised him into having great adventures, such as trekking and climbing. Their son Caoilte (11) was born when Siobhan was 39, and daughter Luisne (7) when she was 43. "We were overjoyed," says Siobhan. "I've always wanted children."

By his own admission, John wasn't that interested in having a family, but things soon changed when Siobhan became pregnant. "I became a broody dad and all my brothers and sisters were weak laughing," he says. "They were saying, 'Look at this for a U-turn'. Now that the children have arrived, they come first and business is second."

Siobhán bought St Tola Irish Goat Cheese in 1999 from her family's neighbours, Meg and Derrick Gordon, who developed the fine quality of the cheese and helped establish a gourmet cottage industry in a rural area. She moved it to her parents' farm in Inagh in Clare. They have a herd of 300 goats there, and although the farming side can be challenging, particularly when goats are kidding, Siobhan's heart is in the land and she adores it.

She has developed the business from a local industry to an internationally-recognised brand, although the cheese is still handmade in small batches as the artisanal quality is paramount. St Tola now has eight products and has won awards all over the world, including Best in Class and Best Irish Cheese at the 2017-18 World Cheese Awards.

Siobhan and John were also thrilled to win the Environmental Award at the Irish Food Writers' Guild Food Awards earlier this month, which celebrates Ireland's food producers and organisations. It recognises great Irish producers and products that are integral to Ireland's fine reputation in food and drink, both at home and abroad. Siobhan is passionate about sustainable farming and protecting the land for future generations.

The family now divides their time between their homes in Kenmare and Inagh and while it's a busy life, they love it. It's a lifestyle, they say, and they have a passionate team of staff supporting them.

While focusing on his shellfish business in Kenmare, John primarily looks after finance, the farm and capital investment for St Tola. "Siobhan runs the show and I'm primarily in the background," he says.

They have differences of opinion, of course, but they iron them out, says Siobhan. "John is always the optimist and I'm the realist," she smiles.

"I'd be more into straight-talking whereas he'd take a longer approach. He's very kind and gives a lot of time to people, and tends to see the good in everyone where I'd be more wary.

"In one way, he's innocent, but sure it's an attractive innocence."

www.st-tola.ie www.irishfoodwritersguild.ie

We are delighted here to announce that we have won awards at the 2017-18 World Cheese Awards

Our lovely Ash Log won Best in Class and Overall Best Irish Cheese!

Great news and a super boost to the team here just before Christmas!

Siobhan x

If you get down to Lidl before the Sunday 24th September, you will be able to buy St Tola Divine instore in Lidl nationwide as part of the KICKSTART Lidl promotion - plenty of other amazing Irish products too! Our Divine is also available in Dunnes stores, Tesco and Supervalu also. Watch out for Grainne in Dunnes in Ennis this Friday and Saturday!

We have had a great summer welcoming visitors here at St Tola, but our public sessions have now finished up for the season. If you like to book a private tour or join one of our pre-booked tours, please send us an e-mail on info@st-tola.ie.

Due to popular demand, we are going to be having Open Tour dates here at St Tola Goat Farm from this Wednesday the 5th July and every Wednesday in July and August. Tours will start at 10.30am sharp and will include a tour of the farm and a cheese making demonstration with tasting. Adults €8, children €5 family ticket (2 adults and 2 children €20. Tours wil start prompt at 10.30 so make sure you are on time! We are just off the main Ennistymon to Ennis road and well sign posted.

Hope to see some of ye on Wednesday!

Siobhan

In case you missed it, we delighted to announce that St Tola are featuring in TV3s monthly farming programme "Rare Breeds" throughout 2017. The first episode was on yesterday at 7.30pm... catch up by watching it on the 3player here! https://www.tv3.ie/3player/show/1100/119541/0/Rare-Breed

Those lovely people at Sheridans cheesemongers have been happily fiddling with our cheese again! The wonderful Franck has come up with a delicious St Tola and Beetroot Quiche and it is as tasty as it is good looking!

https://hungrybreton.com/2016/05/08/st-tola-and-beetroot-relish-quiche/

Dont forget Sheridans have their big day out, their annual Food Festival in Viriginia Road Station in Co Meath next Sunday 29th May. A feast of fun and food for everyone!

http://sheridanscheesemongers.com/sheridans-annual-irish-food-festival/

Next weekend is also the Annual Burren Slow Food Festival. A superb line up this year includes a champagne and oyster picnic under the Clffs of Moher, Whiskey and Chocolate Tasting, Champagne and Smoked Salmon Tasting,  speakers including JP McMahon and Catherine Cleary as well as the usual producers market and festival banquet. http://www.slowfoodclare.com/festival/

And we are so looking forward to Bloom this year...come and see us with our friends from Cashel Blue 2nd to the 6th June 2016http://www.slowfoodclare.com/festival/

The sun is finally out here in Co Clare so get out and see our beautiful country and get tasting some lovely Irish Food!

Siobhan x 

Watch out for St-Tola on 'Farm Live' on RTE 1 Tues 5th of April at 7 p.m.

Who doesn't love pancakes? So easy to make and an endless variety of toppings and fillings....so here are few new ideas to try with St Tola Goat Cheese,·     

Dot each pancake with around 30g of St Tola, 4 caramelised apple slices, (just fry the apples for a few minutes in lots of Irish butter until they start to brown)  a few bashed walnuts & a few thyme leaves.

Or  spread some good quality red onion marmalade over each pancake, dot with 30g of St Tola & some peppery rocket leaves

Or spread each pancake with about 30g of St Tola Divine,  some light Irish honey, & a sprinkle of nuts & dried fruit

Happy Shrove Tuesday!

Siobhan

Did you see The Seven O'Clock Show on TV3 on Wednesday Evening? Chef Gary O'Hanlon made a beautiful and healthy looking Kale and St Tola Salad! For those of you that missed it, here is the link: 

http://www.tv3.ie/shows/sevenoclockshow/article/1.65.1323.1324/189724/Ma...

and I will be posting up the recipe later in the week. Can't wait to try it!

Siobhan

Great write up recently in the Financial Times, honoured to be named as one of the 5 best cheeses in Britain and Ireland 2015

We are delighted to announce that our lovely St Tola Divine was a 2 Gold Star winner at the recent Great Taste Awards! These awards are considered the Oscars of the Food World and it is testament to the hard work and dedication of the team here that produces such fine cheese! A full list of Irish winners can be seen here   http://greattasteawards.co.uk/?product_producer_name=&category=&rating=&...

We have some amazing visitors to our farm over the summer including Peter Morrell that writes for a range of websites including the Huffington Post. Details of Peters visit to The Burren in the summer can be read  http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/peter-morrell/burren-food-trail_b_804274...  many thank Peter for your kind words and we are delighted that you came to visit us. 

The inaugural Food on the Edge Symposium is to take place this October 19th and 20th in Galway.  The ever busy J.P. McMahon (we don't know how he finds the time) has arranged a coming together of top international chefs and food leaders for a 2 day symposium. There are some amazing events and speakers during the event, full details can be found on www.foodontheedge.ie and a great article by Rebecca LeHup writing for the Huffington Post can be found here http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/rebecca-leheup/from-seed-to-symposium_b_801...

Siobhan x 

We have had some great visitors lately... most notably Peter Morrell from The Huffington Post, Hannah Thompson from the Caterer and Rose Prince from The Telegraph, many thanks to Bord Bia for organising such interesting visitors to Ireland.  We will be posting some articles from these journalists later in the year. 

Our Discover Farmhouse Cheese Open Days are proving very popular with young and old alike...our next Open Day is Monday 10th August, gates open at 2.30pm and the tour starts at 2.45pm sharp..all welcome and its free! The next Open Day after that is Friday 28th August, same times, it will be Heritage week so a last chance to get some culture before the school term starts!

The best news however is of course the news that The Burren Food Trail was the proud winner of the EDEN award - European Destination of Excellence award for gastronomy. This is the second time if 5 years that Clare has won this award and we are so delighted to be part of this amazing group and the award  is testement to the hard work of all involved. Check out our Facebook page for photos of the fabulous lunch at Hotel Doolin last week.  

Hope to see some of you at our next Open Day!

Siobhan 

Clare-based Artisan wins Prestigious Award from Top Chefs

Bumper year for Euro-Toques Ireland’s EirGrid Food Awards

The annual EirGrid Euro-Toques Food Awards took place  Monday 15th June 2015. The awards are voted on by the members of Euro-Toques Ireland, a community of cooks and chefs established in 1986 by Myrtle Allen, who subscribe to the highest standards in sourcing ingredients and culinary excellence. Members include top chefs such as Ross Lewis, Kevin Thornton, Derry Clarke, Sunil Ghai, Neven Maguire, Guillaume LeBrun, Wade Murphy, Gary O’Hanlon and Darina Allen. 

We are delighted that St Tola was one of the winners of this years awards! 

Speaking after receiving the award, Siobhan Ní Ghairbhith commented: “St.Tola is a successful business because we continue to stay true to ourselves. We produce our cheeses at a very high quality, are innovative by creating new products based on the feedback we get from our customers and are good communicators of what we do to the market place. The best advantage of being an artisanal producer is that what we produce is unique, producing products with true provenance reflecting the sustainable environment in which our St.Tola range is made and by whom it is made. By being artisanal we are protecting the long-term future of the environment and all those who live on it, which makes it all worthwhile.”

Siobhan Ní Ghairbhith for her St Tola Irish Goat Cheese

Sinead O’Brien for ‘Mungo Murphy’s (hand-harvested) Seaweed

Shana Wilkie for her ‘bean to bar’ organic chocolate 

Rod and Julie Calder-Potts for their Highbank Orchards ‘Orchard Syrup

Padraig and Anthony Farrelly’s for Farrelly’s Butchers and Abattoir 

Our latest Disover Farmhouse Cheese Open Day was this morning here at St Tola. We have a great morning with a good number of visitors and the sun even came out for a change! Our next Open Day here is 19th June...I'll post up the times shortly. Come along and see our goats and taste our unbelievably good cheese! 

Well Summer is really here; the farm is in full swing, most of our goats have kidded and the lads are once again super busy in production!

There are a number of very good foodie events coming up in the next few weeks. Firstly the superb Ballymaloe Litfest, this weekend 15th to 17th May, check out the listings on http://www.litfest.ie for the incredible list of speakers. Well worth a trip to East Cork for such a line up. 

Clodagh McKenna will be doing a three day pop up restaurant in Selfridges in London next week 18th to 20th May featuring the very best of Irish Cooking. We are so proud that she is featuring our cheese on her menu! have a look herehttp://www.clodaghmckenna.com/home/digest/?category_id=9#.VVTbWuvyckU to see what is on offer!

The Burren Food Festival is once again upon us. This year is a weeklong festival with events on every day from this Saturday.  St Tola will be hosting a picnic here on the farm next Tuesday 11 to 1pm 8 euro per person under 10s for free! Booking essential email us sales@st-tola.ie or 065 683 6633.   otherwise check out http://www.slowfoodclare.com/festival/ to see what else is on, there is something for everyone this year!

Just a reminder that we will be featured next week in RTE guide and this months Easy Food Magazine!

Hope to see some of you at some events!

Siobhan 

Happy Easter !

A quick reminder of things happening here for St Tola!

Our Sinead will be starting up at Kinvara farmers market this Friday, a welcome return for locals and visitors alike. 

Our shop on site at the farm opens up today,10-4 MONDAY TO FRIDAY no BANK HOLS, tours are available but they are not held every day and must be booked well in advance, see our tours page for more details.... and don't forget to get Easy Food this Friday to see the article on St Tola and a new recipe too!

Of course the big news is GALWAY FOOD FESTIVAL! Starting this Friday and running until Monday. Siobhan will be tasting at Sheridans from 11-6pm and then in The Malthouse Restaurant from 4-5.30pm. Sinead will be doing a one off market on Saturday at the Galway Festival market. check outhttp://www.galwayfoodfestival.com

In honour of the Galway Food Festival our recipe of the month is from Galways own J.P McMahon, St Tola croquettes ! check out http://www.st-tola.ie/recipes/st-tola-goats-cheese-and-sweet-potato-croq...

Happy Easter to you all!

Siobhan 

We will be participating in The Burren Food Fayre at The Pavillion in Lisdoonvarna as part of the Burren Winterage Weekend which runs from 25th to 27th October.

St. Tola won Best Goat Cheese and Best Artisan at the Blas na hEireann Awards at the Dingle Food Festival. 2014

Our next OPEN DAY here at St Tola is this Tuesday coming 17th June from 11am to 1pm. We are doing this in conjunction with Bord Bia and http://www.discoverfarmhousecheese.ie/.  It is also National Bike Week next week so we have also a foraging cycle event happening. Bikes are meeting at Inagh Church at 11am and then cycling down to us along the back roads, foraging along the way. There will be cheese and crackers here for tasting on arrival - the weather is promised good so leave the car behind and get on your bike..! Ring 087 687 7890 to book your place (and yr bike if you don't have one!)

http://www.bikeweek.ie/

Siobhán and all the goats at St Tola

There are lots of events and lots of news here at St Tola! Our Roisin will have a stall this weekend at the Annual Slow Food Clare event this weekend 23rd to 25th April in Lisdoonvarna. There will be a range of events including a market on the Saturday & Sunday, cookery demonstrations, wild foraging walks, and a banquet on the Saturday - a feast for all the senses!

http://www.slowfoodclare.com/festival/

We have fingers crossed that the weather will clear up in time for BLOOM! - the biggest and most beautiful garden show in Ireland. There will be an even bigger food pavillion this year and our Siobhan will be there from Thurs 29th May  to Monday 2nd June at our stall. The Irish Cheese Awards will be announced again there at the CAIS tent, lets hope we can follow on from last years success and win Supreme Champion!  A great day out for everyone! http://bloominthepark.com/

Any British Fans of St Tola out there? We will be at the Royal Bath and West Show next week with our cheese and also to participate at the British Cheese Awards - more details on http://www.bathandwest.com/ http://www.thecheeseweb.com/british-cheese-awards

If you cant make those events, come and have a look at us in our newly open ÉCONOMUSÉE museum and shop here at the farm! We are proud to be part of this fantastic programme. www.economusee.eu

We will be hosting another Open day here at the farm on the 17th June 11 to 1pm all welcome! We will also be hosting an open event and picnic here on the farm on the 21st July - watch this space for more details!

Hope you to see you all somewhere over the summer!

Siobhán and all the goats xx

We are delighted to announce the grand opening of our fabulous ÉCONOMUSÉEE - that is our living & working museum here at our beautiful farm on Thursday 17th April at 11am.  We are honoured to become only the 3rd Economusee in the Republic of Ireland. Guest speakers David McCann Executive Chef at Dromoland Castle & Kevin Heanue, Economist at Teagasc. For more information on this www.economusee.eu   The day is also part of Bord Bia Discover Farmhouse Cheese series of events and we welcome members of the public to come and visit us on the day, see our lovely goats & taste our delicious cheese! www.discoverfarmhousecheese.ie

See you all on the day!

Siobhán and all the goats xx

The second annual Burren Winterage Festival is with us again this weekend.  Highlights include a working horse demonstration, a walk to the holy wells and pilgim sites in the Burren, a shorthorn cattle show, the annual cattle drive to the uplands and of course the Burren Masterchef competition at the Burren Food Fayre in Lisdoonvarna on Sunday 27th October from 1 to 5pm. A beautiful series of events celebrating the Burren ancient farming and cultural traditions.