Drumanilra Farm - Part 1 (2017)

It is a still, bright day as I trundle down a local winding road that passes between Lough Arrow and Lough Key and crosses the Sligo/Roscommon county border. I have travelled this road many times before and always admired its beauty and stunning lake views but today I paid special attention to the land with an agricultural eye. The fields are small and rarely rectangular surrounded with thick hedges, some boggy with rough scrub and others carefully maintained by some ‘tidy farmer’. It is the sort of land that agricultural contractors hate because the ‘gaps’ are seldom wide enough to pass through and their big machines struggle to turn in acute corners. The wonderful thing about this landscape is that the only way to farm here is with nature because only a fool would try to fight it.  Here in the rolling fields with a dozen soil types it is overwhelmingly evident that nature will always rule. The air heaves with the hum of trillions of tiny invertebrate wings and the scent of innumerable plants mingle and change momentarily in the gentle air currents.

This is the place that Liam and Justina Gavin came back to with their young family. They left behind successful businesses in the UK with a solid amount of capital to inject into an ancestral farm of forty acres in the wilds of Roscommon. Yes, that may sound like financial suicide, but not when you have their pioneering vision.

As I talked to Liam it became very evident that vision was not in short supply.  The farm is beautiful not only because of its natural assets but the carefully considered farm infrastructure: fences follow ancient field boundaries and hedgerows, drainage is subtle and effective and pockets of wildness are left where appropriate because “that patch of ground is too poor” or it acts as a well-designed shelter belt. This no doubt helps maintain the diversity of wild life; I counted nine species of butterfly during my walk with Liam and that was without even trying.

The farm, which was idle for thirty years, was “completely wild” when the Gavin’s began their new venture five years ago.  With the help of a flail mower and a polyculture of animals the fields are now neat and improving with every season.

On the farm there runs a herd of pedigree Dexter cows which produces the meat for their Burger Bar café’s signature dish, the Dexter Burger. Later in the day I treated myself to one; it is especially delicious when topped with a slice of crisp organic bacon from their herd of free-ranging pigs. The Dexter meat is fine-grained, tender with a subtle gamey flavour.

The livestock continues with a flock of Jacob sheep which at present over-supplies their lamb requirements and a new flock of 50 laying hens which are rotated around the land with mobile housing and electric netting (the flush of grass behind the hens is incredible). The farm also hosts a sizable market garden and tunnels which supplies the café with greens and a host of seasonable veg throughout the year.

The attention to aesthetic detail continues in the farmyard with a typical four-bay dry shed but entirely constructed and clad in timber. There is also a staff canteen, egg packing and veg prep shed, which are all neatly arranged inside another timber clad building. The building plans continue with a well-designed future layout to house the ever expanding enterprises.

The Drumanilra business model is idealistic made realistic. The farm grows the food, the farm-shop and café sell the food.  In fact, it is so realistic that the farm is growing in size with additional land purchased this year to supply their busy retail outlet. The expansion plans don’t end there; another farm-shop and café are in the pipeline shortly with hopes for others in the future.

This is not a low cost start-up enterprise; it has taken a lot of capital, courage and (I’m guessing) blind faith to grow this business. It is a high risk venture that is driven by a love of good food and good farming. This business has had a broad, positive community impact. It carves a pioneering path and makes the finest organic produce accessible and abundant in a small town and surrounding area. This is not some flimsy advertising spin; it is truly a farm to fork experience.

As we stood in Liam’s favourite spot on the farm, a hidden, tranquil ‘picnic field’ where the land meets the shores of Lough Key, I chatted candidly with him about finding time for family in their very busy farming/business life. Instead of scaling back, he believes getting big enough to employ more people is the answer to creating family and leisure time.  In the future he sees the farm growing further and having a full time farm manager. This will supply a dedicated organic butcher and a number of farm-shop/cafés in high population areas. In turn, this will create further employment and a trusted retail outlet for other organic producers. All in all, the organic movement in Ireland is very lucky that the Gavins returned to Drumanilra.