Last year Ireland called home all its long-lost family members in a campaign known as The Gathering. If you are without Irish roots and were feeling a little left out, then we have a good reason for you to visit the island.
The organisaition Good Food Ireland, which promises to help you find the best authentic Irish food and places to stay around the island of Ireland, have recently introduced a prepaid MasterCard. The multi-functional card, which acts as a Food Travel Passport, puts you in touch with companies and businesses committed to using Irish food, via the Good Food Ireland shop online and through the Good Food Ireland Places to Stay, Eat, Cook and Shop – located all over Ireland.
Places like:
An Port Mor in Westport, County Mayo
“Frankie Mallon is a chef with the lightest of touches. He takes finest and freshest ingredients like Clew Bay Lobster, cooks it perfectly in the shell, then combines the juicy flesh with local salad leaves for a dream of a first course. Fresh turbot is given the simplest of treatments, pan fried crisp on the outside, moist in the middle, perched on vibrant tasting garden vegetables from a nearby grower. Give him half a chance with some rich local buttermilk and you’ll end up with the creamiest Panna Cotta you can imagine.”
Ballygally Castle in Ballygally
“This old 17th Century Castle is now a comfortable Hastings Group hotel with forty-four well-appointed en-suite bedrooms. The fascinating thing here is the history! If you are a bit of a ghost hunter or fancy your chances at becoming one – no finer place to stay.”
Dublin Cookery School in County Dublin
“Housed in a dazzling purpose-built premises, the bright, spacious kitchens of the Lynda Booth’s Dublin Cookery School are the perfect setting for novice cooks and seasoned chefs alike. With 12 fully-equipped workstations, complete with hobs and ovens, students learn tricks of the trade in a supportive and challenging environment. As they say themselves, ‘serious food in a relaxed atmosphere’.”
Who is planning to visit Ireland now?
Heather is a writer, photographer and explorer of the world with bylines in Archaeology Magazine, Porthole Cruise Magazine, Taste & Travel, amongst others. She is addicted to pen, paper, hotels, organisation and hippos. In addition to Travel Gluttons, you can find her over at Cloggie Central. 
