Ella McSweeney's posts

Ella McSweeney goes deer stalking in Wicklow with Angus Lee, game keeper at Killruddery House, and Ed Hick, a master butcher from Dublin.

Connemara Hill Lamb has an EU PGI label - protected geographical indication. The farmers talk about how they got the label and how it has changed their business:

www.rte.ie/tv/eartotheground

There is only one local abattoir left in Middleton. It's owned by Frank Murphy, who is the 8th generation butcher in his shop. He cycles too and from the abattoir which is located in a lane way parallel to his butcher shop on Middleton main street. When Frank was younger, there were 7 abattoirs in the town. He talks to Ella about his life as a butcher and abattoir owner, and his 94 year old father Dan remembers what meat his customers bought in the past.

Elizabeth Higgins and Sheila Morgan tell Ella McSweeney about their experiences working as 'Avon Ladies' in 1970s in Dublin...

Brendan Murphy once had a butcher shop on main street, Middleton in Co. Cork. His abattoir was in the back lane. 16 years ago he retired; the abattoir was sold to the county council who demolished it and built houses on the site and his butcher shop is gone.

“Gather up the pots and the old tin cans... the mash, the corn, the barley and the bran...run like the devil from the excise man...keep the smoke from rising barney...keep your eyes well peeled today, the excise men are on their way...”

And we all know what the ‘mountain tay’ the excise men were looking for in the hills of Connemara! Poitin.

It’s long associated with illegality: first outlawed back in 1661, it was relatively recently, in 1997, when the Revenue Commissioners permitted the licensed sale of it within Ireland.

Ella meets Mairtin MacConrai, a part time farmer from Leitir Moir, Connemara, who first made poitin with his father 50 years ago. She also visits Cooley Distillery in Kilbeggan, Co. Westmeath where they are making 1,000 bottles of 65% proof poitin; she talks to head distiller Alex Chasko and manager, Brian Quinn.

Máirtín MacConrai tells Ella about his experiences making poitin with his father in rural Connemara 50 years ago...

Máirtín MacConrai lives in Connemara and here describes how he used to make poitín with his father 50 years ago.