Drumanilra Revisited (2020)

It has been three years since I visited Drumanilra. Liam and Justina Gavin had moved back from the UK to Liam’s ancestral farm in Co. Roscommon with the dream of setting up the farm to supply a café and farm shop in the local town of Boyle. Their ambition did not stop there; the plan at that stage was to expand the farm and open more organic food outlets in areas of larger population.

A lot has happened in three years so we thought we would catch up with Liam for an update. I could be writing a story of severe misfortune because this year was supposed to be a high point in the Drumanilra tale. 2020 was supposed to see the opening of three new businesses: a new restaurant in Strandhill in Sligo was to be complemented by Europe’s first organic, drive-through take-away in a repurposed KFC, while the original café and farm shop in Boyle (closed last year after they received planning permission to demolish the current building) was to be replaced with a modern, purpose-built café and large retail space.

The couple had started hiring a new management team and staff for the Strandhill site when Covid-19 restrictions brought everything to a halt and, unfortunately, the team had to be let go. The main issue with pausing such ambitious plans mid-stream was that, in the background, the farm and gardens had been cranked up to full production with a new head gardener and farm manager in preparation to supply the food outlets.

The backlog of the finest organic products put Justina and Liam’s innovative flexibility to the test. In the early weeks of limbo when Covid-19 had just started to become a threat, the pair quickly responded and flipped their plans to online sales. Justina resurrected an old website and redesigned it to create a very slick online farm shop with a range of meat, veg, and fruit boxes offering a click and collect service to five collection locations, in Strandhill, Boyle, Carrick on Shannon in Leitrim, Longford town and Foxford in Co. Mayo. They also started delivering nationwide by DPD once a week.

As was the experience of many people in direct sales during lockdown, the response from the public was exceptionally positive. Liam worked closely with his trusted abattoir and butcher, G. Burns Meat in Grange, Co. Sligo, to tailor the butchering to suit the boxes they wanted to offer their customers. Currently, they are processing and selling a finished Dexter animal per week. 

The Drumanilra market gardens have not yet the range they want to offer in the veg boxes, so they are sourcing some products from other local organic gardens. They have started importing other organic fruit and veg from Holland to complete the range on offer. Liam was glad to have the opportunity to familiarise himself with the supply chain from Holland as he knew he would need to explore it in the future for the restaurants.

Back on the farm, their new farm manager, Noel Higgins is developing the grazing infrastructure and setting up the farms to manage the cattle herds with a holistic management framework. This infrastructure includes fencing and water points to allow for flexible paddocks for an adaptive grazing rotation to utilise the grazing area to its full potential. There are also plans to start finishing pigs again, but for the moment they will continue to source their lamb and table birds from other organic farmers. As I spoke to Liam, Noel was busy constructing the new moveable poultry tunnel from McGregor polytunnels. The plan is to run 200 laying hens in the mobile structure. They will add eggs to their product range and supply the restaurants and café in future.

The proposed new schedule for the openings is now to start with the innovative organic drive-through in Carrick on Shannon in November. The infrastructure and layout from its previous life as a Kentucky Fried Chicken fast-food drive-through inspired the idea of making a wholesome organic version of the drive-through model. This premises will eventually host a retail section for a farm-shop and a seated restaurant area with a liquor licence so they can serve wine. But while the uncertainty of Covid-19 still looms, the focus will be to offer a broad takeaway menu via the drive-through. They are excited to have David Porter as their new executive head chef, who will develop the menus for all the locations.

All things being well, Strandhill will open a year later than planned (March 2021) and once these two are up and running the building work will begin on the original site in Boyle next summer.