Gearóid Lynch is “a three-acre man”.

“We get opportunities most months to open a restaurant in Dublin or open a restaurant here, there and everywhere,” says the chef and owner of the Olde Post Inn in Cloverhill, Co Cavan. “And we turn every one of them down because I’m a three-acre man.

“So, don’t take me off three acres of land because it can be the downfall. People think: ‘Why wouldn’t you want another successful restaurant?’ But you’re only as successful as your last meal – down to the last cup of coffee.”

And it seems that even the release of his first cookbook, My Gluten-Free Kitchen, won’t budge him.

For instance, when it was suggested that he rent a studio down the country to film cookery videos for YouTube to coincide with the book launch, he decided to build his own instead. He now plans to use it as a private cookery school to complement his award-winning restaurant with rooms, where weekend stays are booked up weeks in advance.

Which might soften the cough of some of the doubters who could not comprehend why Gearóid returned to cook in Cavan, having lived and worked in Dublin, London and New York.

“I always felt that if you were in the city and you said you were coming back to Cavan, they would have said: ‘Are you mad?’” says Gearóid.

“But I believe you’re coming back to work in the Garden of Eden.”

Gearóid grew up on a 15-acre mixed farm in Crosserlaugh where he learned to cook and bake as a child to help his mother, who also worked as a hairdresser. His abiding food memory is of the batch loaf – “If you had nothing else in the house, you always had the batch loaf”– which is somewhat ironic considering he was diagnosed as coeliac in 2012 after his wife Tara told him that he needed to get to the bottom of the symptoms that had seen him in and out of hospital as a young boy.

“My wife said to me: ‘You have to sort out your system, it’s just a mess,” says Gearóid.

“I was always sick as a child. They never knew what was wrong with me. I was always allowed sleep in school, because it just wore me down.”

Looking back, he believes it hampered his education, but his passion for cooking saw him accepted to Killybegs Tourism College to train as a chef and work with leaders in the Irish food industry, like Kevin Thornton and John Howard, as well as restaurants in Luxembourg, London and New York.

So, why return to Cavan at just 23?

“I’d kind of had enough of it,” he admits. “I wanted to wind down.

“My brother had a hen house and I said: ‘Look, I’ll pick eggs for a few months.”

The wind down

Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the “wind down” did not last that long after an auctioneer approached Gearóid to open a restaurant in Cavan town, which he ran for 18 months with a business partner. The following year, however, The Olde Post Inn – a former post office that had been running as a country restaurant – came on the market.

At the grand old age of 25, Gearóid and Tara – who he met in Killybegs – decided to take a chance.

“I came in with three investors into the business initially here, with the option of buying them out in three years,” says Gearóid. “And, subsequently, we bought them out after a year of opening up the Olde Post.”

Since then, the couple has invested €1.2m in revamping the restaurant and adding on six rooms for guests, with 10 full-time and 15 part-time staff employed.

Indeed, Gearóid took on rather than cut staff during the recession and never dropped his prices because he believes “farmers work God damn hard” and have to be paid properly for quality produce – whether it’s organic lamb from Felix Croppe, chickens from Alo Mohan, beef from Paddy Gaynor, pork from McCarren’s, cheese from Silke Croppe and free-range eggs from his own family farm.

“Felix Croppe comes with his lambs, I buy six lambs off of him, he gets paid straight away. So he takes off with his money and reinvests in another 12 lambs. It’s the same with the pigs, the same with everything we do here,” says Gearóid. “The whole country could do a lot more of this and the money could stay in the economy.”

Every dish served at the Olde Post Inn has a story, from the wild garlic in the bread to the elderflower sorbet from the churchyard across the road.

“We kind of swallow in the seasons and then we just put it back out to the people,” enthuses Gearóid.

But accompanying that is a serious commitment to customer service. Every evening, the Olde Post Inn is scrubbed and set, whether there are two guests or 120. Waiting staff will send a dish back to the kitchen if they feel it is not at the usual standard.

“It’s not about: ‘Oh God, I’m after losing €30 on that main course or whatever. It just doesn’t go out,” says Gearóid.

“I’m very conscious that people work very hard to put the euro in their pocket and then they’re coming in here to give it back to me.”

So, it’s no surprise that when Gearóid was approached by Gill Books to write My Gluten-Free Kitchen, he and his team went the extra mile; for example, developing 120 recipes for the book when he was only asked for 100, or bake-testing a gluten-free chocolate cake 15 times to make sure it would turn out perfectly for the home cook.

Because, despite the fact that Gearóid is a chef, he admits that he initially found being diagnosed as coeliac “life changing” and “totally devastating”.

“The day that I was diagnosed, I was on the way home and I wanted to stop for a sandwich or a snack – I just couldn’t pick up products anymore,” he recalls, explaining that he wants to share his expertise to help others who might be struggling with the switch to a gluten-free diet.

In fact, Gearóid argues that some of the recipes, such as the gluten-free fish and chips and sticky toffee pudding, are even better than their traditional counterparts, and hopes there is a place for it on every kitchen shelf as a cookbook in its own right.

“It just happens to be gluten-free and very carefully put together so that it all adds up and the meals come out correctly for people,” he says.

While being diagnosed as a coeliac was difficult, life has never been better for Gearóid. He has more energy than ever – and not just for his business but also for his family, with four children under 10: Oran (eight), Lorcan (six), Emma (four) and Eoin (two).

In his spare time, Gearóid also takes part in triathlons; though with commitments such as the Taste of Cavan food festival and a recent appointment as a Neff ambassador, spare time might be harder to come by this summer.

Though, he won’t wander far from those three acres.

“I’m a small farmer,” he smiles. “I came from 15 acres down to three acres – but I’m happy at it.”

The Olde Post Inn, Cloverhill, Co Cavan.

Web: www.theoldepostinn.com Tel: 047-55555