“Ireland is home to five times as many cattle as humans, and wonderful natural pastures, rich in herbs and the greenest of grass, benefits from gentle rain and a mild climate, all factors that combine to create a milk of distinction.”
Our family have lived at Gubbeen for six generations, always as dairy farmers. Tom and Giana first began making cheese here in the 1970s.
Tom witnessed rural electrification. His father, William, harvested by horse and worked with his neighbours threshing and milling. William's father, Thomas, worked Gubbeen and his father before him created an added value to the milk by introducing milk separators to the area – this gave them cream for the butter making industry and skimmed milk for feeding the calves.
To this day value added food production has been the key component of the farming methods at Gubbeen.
Pigs, poultry and geese have always been part of farm yard life at Gubbeen – part of our diversity and our food chain - both for our family and our livelihood.
The Atlantic Ocean is our western boundary; the Fastnet lighthouse blinks through our windows at night.
This makes us the most south-westerly cheese dairy in Ireland and so we are blessed with early grass and clean air.
Although West Cork is not the centre of milk production in Ireland, it's beautiful landscape does bring us many tourists. The farming at Gubbeen has evolved into food production for both our neighbours and our visitors.