Two teenage businesswomen from Leitrim with a unique cow-manure briquette business will represent Ireland at the Global Showcase in New York.

Cousins Linda Dolan (17) and Clare Dolan (16) set up MURE, which offers odourless briquettes made from dried cow manure through the Foróige Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.

The fifth-year students from St Clare’s Comprehensive School in Manorhamilton secured the all-expenses-paid trip to New York after winning the programme’s International Business Plan Competition.

The teenagers will now represent Ireland at NFTE’s Global Showcase, which celebrates the power of entrepreneurship education. There they will rub shoulders with Chelsea Clinton, as well as young entrepreneurs from the US, Australia, China, Mexico, Singapore, Israel, Germany and Belgium.

Reducing global warming

“Mure’s aim is to reduce global warming as our product is renewable and made out of a completely natural resource – cow manure. ‘Your Effluence is our Affluence’ is our business motto,” said Clare.

She continued: “We were on our family farm when we were discussing the amount of cow manure that is being wasted and not being used for anything. We were trying to think of ways to turn this vast amount of cow manure into euros when we came up with the idea to dry it out and burn it.”

A year-long study carried out by the girls in conjunction with their school and Sligo Institute of Technology found their product to be more efficient than peat briquettes.

“We compared the calorific values of our Mure briquettes to peat briquettes and it showed that ours has a higher calorific value and has a longer burning time,” said Linda.

Mure than the money

However, it hasn’t all been a walk in the park for the duo. “One of our biggest challenges was that our customers were worried about an odour from cow manure briquettes, but once they are dried and treated correctly there is no odour from them at all,” Linda explained.

A Mure fire log costs €4 and a fire bag, which consists of their briquettes, kindlers and a fire lighter, costs €5. Since Mure was established in October 2014, the business has generated an income of €1,154.

The girls are hoping to take their product nationwide. “We are in consultation with McPartland Fuels, Corrib Oil and also several Applegreen stores asking them to stock our products,” said Linda.

Mure donates 10% of its profits to the Irish Cancer Society and Mental Health Ireland.