I farm: “About 120 acres all in all in Co Longford. The post office address is Balinalee but we’re closer to Bunlahy. You know how these thing work.”

Butchers: “We also have a butcher shop in Granard town where we slaughter all our own stock. The processing unit is fully regulated and is based at our house. We bring the meat in from our unit and sell it in the shop.”

Qualified: “I qualified as a butcher in 1986 in the Dublin Institute of Technology. A lot has changed since then but people always want quality. My father put the grá for butchering in me when I was young. I had my first shop when I was 20.”

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Future for butchers: “There is a demand for the local butcher again but it is sad to see the amount of local abattoirs drop off in recent years. The local butcher is real traceability. I know the animal where the steak in my shop came from.”

Cattle: “We have Hereford and Angus cattle. We used to have cows but we found there was a huge expense keeping the cow as well as the calf. We buy in stock now and feed them on grass for a year, or for however long it takes, and then we finish them. We dry age them then for 28 days.”

Turkeys: “I recently got Department of Agriculture approval to be a free-range turkey producer. We have about 100 turkeys all in all. There was huge demand for turkeys this year; we’ll have to have to produce more next year.”

Other stock: “We process chickens and pigs. We have dry age bacon as well as sausages.”

This week: “We killed all the turkeys on Sunday. It was a full day of killing. It’s tough, busy work. They’ll all be sold in the shop this week.”

Family: “I’m married to Peter who is a forestry contractor and we have three children. The eldest daughter is 19 doing ag science, the next daughter wants to do nursing in England next year and our son is 15.”

Quotable quote: “I’ve definitely seen a return to more people using the local butcher. People like to get the quality from their butcher.”