It was not the glorious Georgia day of dreams. There was no sweet and clear moonlight through the pines, and peaceful dreams seemed far away from the busy Atlanta traffic.

Instead, it was a rainy and grey afternoon and my Uber driver brought me on a serious detour before I arrived to Judith McLoughlin’s house in Roswell in Atlanta.

“Come in, I have the tea ready,” says Judith. And with that warm welcome in her soft linting Armagh accent, my shoulders relaxed and I suddenly didn’t feel so far away from home.

Admittedly, when I first came across Judith’s Shamrock and Peach website, I was apprehensive that the Irish link to the American blog could be a great, great cousin twice removed. However, the Armagh lint coupled with the Kerrygold lavished on homemade soda bread proved Judith and Gary McLoughlin’s Irish heritage is alive and well.

Judith McLoughlin's Paddy's Day soup.

Even after 25 years living in America, Judith is promoting food from home through Irish cookery classes, catering, and now a travel company bringing 150 Georgians to the home turf each summer. Judith says it all goes back to her farming and entrepreneurial upbringing in Gilford.

“Dad is a sheep and cattle farmer and his family run the Ulster Farmers Mart in Enniskillen. Two of my uncles are auctioneers in the mart but my Dad was the quieter one. Growing up, I remember going west with him every summer to buy lambs where he’d fatten them up on our lush pastures.

“Then there was also the entrepreneurial spirit from the ladies in the family. My grandmother ran a B&B and in later years my sister set up Gilberry Fayre, a family restaurant and catering business which is still going, although it’s sold on now. At one stage my sisters and I were all working there,” she laughs.

When the Great American Dream came knocking though, Judith couldn’t resist.

“Gary and I were together since high school and about a year after we got married, the carpet company he was working for offered him a job in Boston. It was 1993, we were in our 20s, we had no children at the time, no mortgage and I was like, yes, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we have to do it.”

Gary on the other hand is a bit more cautious by nature. However, just looking at Judith recalling the excitement of the adventure they had ahead of them, we’re guessing he couldn’t help but get swept up in it all.

“It was initially going to be for one year, then five. Now we’re here 25 years.”

Boston was the first stop on the way. “We were there for a year or so. I had been doing a bit of work in advertising at home and I was lucky enough to get a work permit. Of course, moving to Boston was a culture shock but later when the company moved to Atlanta, well, it went to another level. In Boston, the Irish culture is really tangible and it’s something to hold on to, to help you keep afloat so far away from home. The hot Georgia days in the deep south aren’t quite as relatable.”

So far away from home, Judith started reverting to her home comforts, cooking. “We had our sons Peter, 21, and Jack, 18, when we moved to Atlanta and when they were young I’d have friends and neighbours over for a bite to eat – maybe a morning scone or some tea in the afternoon. I would put together a bit of a spread, make up some soda bread or cakes, bake a quiche or even just a few smoked salmon sandwiches. People would go crazy for my food. I was fascinated because to me it was nothing gourmet, it was those home comfort foods that I saw my mother and grandmother whip up. It felt second nature to me but everyone used to love it.

“Of course, Georgians also love their home comfort food; shrimp and grits and southern fried chicken. Over the years I realised that although the Irish link in Boston is very obvious, ironically, the southern way of living is much more similar to Ireland – the food, the country music, the people and their southern hospitality.”

In fact, this southern hospitality and food connection was so strong that people started to ask Judith to cater for parties.

“They were small intimate affairs and I took it on because it was something I loved to do. When I catered for that first party though, I never imagined the road that Irish food would take me on in America.”

The catering tipped away for a few years, which suited Judith when the boys were young. In 2009, however, she stepped things up a notch by officially setting up Shamrock and Peach – shamrocks was the Irish link while peaches are the state fruit of Georgia.

“I realised in the years that I was catering how the American’s image of Irish food was so influenced by Irish bars that often don’t serve up Irish food. I wanted to change that perception using fresh produce: fish dishes, warming leek and potato soup, comforting stews. And then I added a southern twist, introducing ingredients such as okra and peanuts, pecans and peaches.”

Judith McLoughlin's beetroot salad.

This Irish southern fusion started gathering traction for Judith, leading her to develop her own blog as well as a cookbook, with Gary capturing the shots, after doing photography courses. Then big companies started taking notice.

“I did work with Kerrygold for five years, doing cookery demos in different cities. I did demos in Publix, which is a big supermarket chain in the United States. More recently, I started doing cookery demos in Whole Foods, another big supermarket. At Christmas, I had soldout classes cooking an Irish festive dinner. The demos are great but what I really love is the reaction when people taste the food.

“‘This is so delicious,’ they would say and I would always reply: ‘Well, if you think that’s good then you should taste what Irish chefs are doing back home.’”

That was how the next part of the puzzle clicked in. “Again this happened by accident, so many things on this journey happened by accident, but I was approached by a US company who said: ‘Hey, you are really developing a food following. Why don’t you sell these tours in Ireland and then we’ll do all the planning?’ So I did for a short while but I realised very quickly that I could cut out the middle man. I know the country, I know the chefs, I know the best places to go, so why not lead the tours myself?”

So that is exactly what Judith did. Now she leads about six tours a year, attracting over 150 professionals from Atlanta and across the southern states.

Judith McLoughlin's beef and porter pie.

“A lot of people are professionals and they want small intimate tours and are willing to pay the price for that. So we are showing off some of the best hotels and restaurants in Ireland, bringing them to the likes of Mount Juliet, Castlemartyr Resort, the Twelve in Galway and the Shelbourne Hotel. We go from Kilkenny Castle to Midtleton Distillery, the Dingle Peninsula and everywhere in between. Recently, we added a tour that incorporates the Aran Islands and the interest in that exploded. It has added another dimension to Shamrock and Peach, an element I wouldn’t even have thought was an option a few years ago but the Irish southern interest keeps growing.”

As we finish up, Judith says the tours help with the home sickness. “Yeah 25 years later and I still feel it. I miss my family, I miss the people, that Irish sense of humour. Getting to come back with the tours, that’s my cure at the moment. But maybe one day Gary and I will go home. It would be amazing to have a place in Ireland as well as our lovely home in Atlanta, that really would be the best of both worlds.”

Judith McLoughlin's apple dumplings.

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