When it comes to fathers and sons in rural Ireland, some hold the idea that the relationship ultimately relies on farming and ensuring that the land will live on through the next generation.

For Joe McGirr, the pressure of inheritance was never quite there, meaning he had the support and freedom to pursue a different path. The result is Co Fermanagh’s award-winning The Boatyard Distillery, known for its range of double gin and premium vodka. However, just because he didn’t fully follow in his family’s farming footsteps does not mean that his heritage and his father’s fingerprints cannot be found throughout the business.

Growing up on a 60ac dairy farm on the banks of Lough Erne, Joe says he always knew his eldest brother Brian would eventually take the reins. While he had the typical farmyard childhood, including milking cows and doing odd jobs, Joe also had the time and space to grow into a different sort of career, which ultimately led him to the world of spirits.

“I studied hospitality management at Fermanagh College and worked as a chef, so I had a hospitality background, but nothing to do with drinks really, until I went to study hospitality management further in Edinburgh. I figured out very quickly that academia wasn’t for me, but then I started working with Glenmorangie, a Scottish whisky company, as they opened a restaurant in Edinburgh,” Joe explains of his origins.

“I stayed with Glenmorangie for a long time and worked my way up the ranks, studying for my Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) qualifications along the way. I got all the way up to my diploma and thought I might end up in a wine bar or something, but then I decided that wine wasn’t for me.”

Joe McGirr stayed with Glenmorangie and the Scotch Whisky Society through its takeover by Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH). As the company became more corporate in nature, McGirr found himself drawn further to the spirits industry. After completing 10 years with the company, he’d evolved into a role focused on tasting and sensory panels that oversaw whether whiskey casks were good enough for the brand to buy and use or sell on. Through this extensive education, he discovered gin and says he immediately fell in love with it.

“I’d spent so long working in Edinburgh and London for other people, but then I wanted to do something for myself. Fifteen years ago, there were only four whiskey distilleries in Ireland. Today, there are over 100,” Joe says. “A lot of it ends up being quite similar, so I didn’t gel with that concept. And at that point, I’d fallen for gin, and gin martinis in particular, so I thought that gin would be right for me.”

His fingerprints are all over The Boatyard Distillery, and that’s really special to me. He passed away from cancer three years ago, and knowing how entwined he has been with it from the beginning is important. Even when we were setting up the business 10 years ago and he was helping me out, I knew at the time that his impact on everything would be of sentimental importance to me going forward

While Joe had been working and living away from home for years, the idea of his own gin distillery based in Fermanagh sparked something in him.

Growing up on the family farm, his parents Michael and Philomena McGirr were very involved in the community, both coming from farming backgrounds. The farm Joe was reared on has been in his family since the 18th century, while his mother’s father, Bernard McManus, was one of the last in the area to practice making creels, a native Irish basket-making technique; his photograph still hangs in one of the family’s favourite pubs, The Linnet Inn, highlighting the deep ties Joe has with the area.

Family support

When he decided that his distillery would be Fermanagh-based, he knew he’d need his family’s support.

After little consideration, they all jumped in to help: one sister Teresa is now the distillery manager, while another, Marie, wrote the poetry that can be found on the brand’s double gin label. His brother Brian runs the family farm, half of which is dedicated solely to growing the sweet gale – also known as bog myrtle – that is found in the brand’s signature mix of organic botanicals. His father Michael McGirr, however, took on a different role altogether.

“I initially wanted to set up the distillery on the farm, so I presented the family with a very formal, pie-in-the-sky plan for what I wanted to do. Building on the farm didn’t work out as it would have been incredibly expensive and I really didn’t have a lot of money, but all along the way, my family encouraged me, every element and every point,” explains Joe.

When he located a suitable premises, directly across Lough Erne as the crow flies from the family farm, Joe knew he had found The Boatyard Distillery’s home and says that his dad, who was hugely on board with his plan from the beginning, dropped everything to help out.

“His fingerprints are all over The Boatyard Distillery, and that’s really special to me. He passed away from cancer three years ago, and knowing how entwined he has been with it from the beginning is important. Even when we were setting up the business 10 years ago and he was helping me out, I knew at the time that his impact on everything would be of sentimental importance to me going forward,” Joe says.

The premises itself is lush and well decorated, with much of it, Joe explains, made, located or helped along by his late father. On the wall behind the bar in the tasting room, you’ll find Michael’s old milking jugs from the farm, sitting below a wooden sign he made that proudly displays The Boatyard Distillery’s logo. To the side, an impressive iron shelving structure houses the range of products, from its sustainably-made gin planter boxes to the new low-alcohol V52 vodka. This, too, was made by Michael and took him over a year to make, from sketching the design to actually installing it in the space.

When Joe was growing up, Michael would always take pains to ensure his children understood the importance of the farm. When Joe decided to use organic wheat to create The Boatyard Distillery’s vodka, Michael explained how farmers always ended up with a poor price when dealing with brokers, so the two hatched a plan to go directly to the farmer.

“I said that’s not really how it’s done and that everyone goes to a co-op, but Dad was so patient and so adamant. He asked why we couldn’t make it work, why we couldn’t make sure our farmers weren’t getting a bad price and a raw deal, and then he helped me find an organic wheat farmer in Co Monaghan, just an hour away, to work with. It’s really deepened my connection with the farm and the wheat. I don’t view it just as a commodity now,” he says. “We don’t get it cheaper and there isn’t a financial gain really from it, but we’ve made a connection with Mark Gillanders, the farmer, that’s really unbreakable. That all came from Dad, that way of doing business, and it’s been so important to The Boatyard Distillery all the way along.”

Tasting room

One of Michael’s biggest projects, and the one Joe is most proud of, is the long wooden table in the centre of the tasting room. Acting as a focal point, it took a year to make from a macrocarpa tree that fell at Tynan Abbey in Co Armagh during a storm.

“I asked Dad to make a table for me with this 200-year-old tree, thinking it wouldn’t be such a massive deal, but he spent a year on it. Even when I was stressed out trying to get everything sorted, he was working away on it with my brother and nephew to make sure it was perfect,” he says. “Now that he’s gone, this table really helps me feel his impact, feel him here. Everything else in the distillery might change, but this will always stay. That connection to him is so important.”

I don’t know what the future will hold. My brother has kids that will hopefully take on the farm because, like a lot of Irish farms, I don’t think we’ll let it go

Joe divides his time between London with his wife Katherine and their children, Tommy, Liam and Finn, and the distillery in Fermanagh. When he’s in Ireland, he stays in the family home; now that Michael has passed on and his mother Philomena is in full-time care, nobody is living there. As his children grow, and The Boatyard Distillery alongside them, Joe says he’s becoming more aware of the legacy he carries with him and what that might mean going forward.

“I don’t know what the future will hold. My brother has kids that will hopefully take on the farm because, like a lot of Irish farms, I don’t think we’ll let it go.

“As for the Boatyard, my three boys are only eight, seven, and four, but I think it’s similar to the farm in that I hope it will continue on with them and that it will stay here with everything my father and my family built with me.”

The Boatyard Distillery runs tours in its Co Fermanagh headquarters, with its products available nationwide.

See boatyarddistillery.com