Escape to the farm with Drumanilra Farm Kitchen

When Liam and Justina Gavin announced that they were leaving the UK to move to a 40-acre mixed farm in Roscommon with their three young children in 2012, let’s just say that opinions were, well, divided.

“Some people were like: ‘Oh my God, I‘d love to do that, it will be fabulous,’” smiles Justina. “And other people said: ‘What are you doing?’”

Six years later, however, they’ve no doubts that their decision has paid off, having not only revived the farm, but also developed the award-winning Drumanilra Farm Kitchen burger bar, cafe and farm shop in the heart of Boyle, with plans to expand to Sligo and Carrick-On-Shannon in the near future.

From Rwanda to Roscommon

Though the couple took the scenic route to Roscommon, Liam explains, while Irish Country Living tries to retain some professional composure while gobbling the all-too-delicious “Drumanilra BLT” made with their own dry-cured rashers.

Born in an RAF hospital in England to Irish parents, Liam spent his early years in South Africa before the family moved back to Dublin and later, Galway.

Summers, however, were spent working with his uncle, James Tonra, on his farm on the shores of Lough Key, which obviously sowed the seed to study agricultural science in UCD.

But a job in agri sales after graduation would bring him back to the UK and later Africa, supplying equipment like maize mills and coffee machinery to farms in Uganda and Rwanda.

“As I developed in my career, I got further and further away from actually farming,” he reflects.

Justina had just as interesting a journey. Born in Australia, her parents moved back to a fishing village in Devon when she was a child, but on her gap year, she decided to go to France and nabbed a job as a chef in a chalet.

“Which was completely crazy, because I’d never cooked anything other than beans on toast in my life,” she laughs. “I was kind of buying things that I’d never seen before, like rabbits and amazing salamis and fantastic French cheeses.”

Rather than pursue that path at the time, however, Justina studied English at university and later moved to Uganda, where she got a job teaching in a secondary school. But after the genocide that devastated Rwanda in 1994, she moved across the border to help play a small role in the re-building of the country; which is how she met Liam.

And the rest, as they say, is history. The couple married and moved back to Ireland, where they set up the Togo coffee shop chain in 1997, which they later sold after relocating to Justina’s hometown in Devon, where they ran a holiday home rental agency.

The idea of returning to farming, however, was never far from their minds.

“It’s something I had always wanted to do and we’d talked about it for years,” says Liam. “When we were living in the UK, we’d looked at – I don’t know how many farms we looked at – 10 farms? It was always too big, too small and never quite right.”

Making their mark(et)

In 2004, however, Liam’s uncle James told him that he planned to leave him the farm in Roscommon after he passed away.

“I was kind of shocked,” he recalls, “but that kind of sowed a seed that maybe we could come back.”

Still not “100%” sure, the young family began to holiday in Roscommon twice a year to get a feel for what it would be like, before deciding in 2012 that it was “now or never” and relocating with their children Fionn (now 12) and twins Emily Anne and Aaron (nine).

With cashflow from the holiday rental business (which they have since sold), the Gavins spent a year clearing and fencing the farm, which had remained more or less untouched for 30 years, before entering organic conversion at the end of 2013.

They then began to stock the farm, starting with Dexter cattle, before adding pigs, sheep and poultry, with a lot of “trial and error” along the way delivering their first litter of piglets, for instance, with the help of a YouTube video.

From the start, however, every decision was made with a view to producing a premium product – and creating their own market for it – to forge a future for their family on what was essentially a marginal, mixed farm.

“We were green behind the ears – but not that green,” says Liam. “We knew that we would have to do something different in order to make it viable for us.”

At the start of 2014, the couple invested in a shepherd’s hut-style food trailer to sell their own Dexter burgers and organic hot dogs – which they had processed locally at Burns Meats in Grange, Co Sligo – at festivals and outdoor events around the country that summer.

But while the public reaction was positive, the travelling involved, plus pitch fees of up to €5,000 at some events, proved prohibitive, so the Gavins decided to go back to the drawing board.

“We just thought: ‘If we didn’t have to move this trailer around the place and we had it parked in a certain location, you could control your overheads,’” explains Liam, “so that’s why we got this place.”

“This place” being a former doctor’s surgery and house in the centre of Boyle town, right next to SuperValu. With a site of nearly one acre, the Gavins saw it had potential, but started very simply, parking the shepherd’s hut in the front garden with a few picnic tables for customers, before gradually renovating the surgery to add a café, indoor kitchen and farm shop.

“And it was lovely looking at the figures at the end of the year because each summer it’s been progressively busier and busier and that spurs us on to take the next little step and make the next bit of investment,” says Justina of their organic growth.

Supporting other farmers

And with customers ranging from van drivers to vegans (and the occasional celebrity, like actor Chris O’Dowd), they hope to prove that it’s possible to produce quality food in a commercially viable way without compromising their principles.

“If we can get a fair price on our farm and offer people fair value, we think that that’s a winning combination,” says Liam. “We get a lot of comments on our value; but we’re still able to make a fair margin on it.”

Obviously, Liam and Justina were able to bring their experience and financial resources from their previous businesses to Drumanilra Farm Kitchen, as well as securing backing from their bank.

And while not shying away from the fact that it is “the hardest thing” they have ever done, they don’t see why more farmers could not replicate what they have done in other parts of the country, considering Boyle is very much a rural town with a population of just under 2,600 people.

“We started off with a very small piece of marginal ground, but there’s a lot of farmers who would have very good land and good acreage and a good system up and running already,” says Liam, who believes the biggest barrier to diversification is often not the investment involved, but the mindset.

“A farmer might be prepared to spend €100,000 on a tractor and they might not see that as a big gamble,” he says, “whereas we don’t see what we’re doing as a big gamble.”

Indeed, such is the demand at Drumanilra Farm Kitchen, that having already extended their own farm to 140 acres, with sale agreed on an additional 170 acres as they develop their own herds, they are also sourcing beef, pork and lamb from other organic farmers to meet demand, winning the title of “Connacht Local Food Hero” at the most recent Irish Restaurant Awards.

“We’d love to create an alternative route to market for like-minded producers like ourselves and we’re already doing that to a certain extent anyway,” says Justina.

And with significant plans to expand, it looks like there will be even more opportunities for farmers to join the Gavins on their journey.

Along with two further cafes in the pipeline for Sligo and Carrick-on-Shannon, the couple plan to completely redevelop the premises in Boyle next year to six to seven times its current size, extending their café and adding facilities like a fresh meat counter and a bakery. They also hope to introduce a tourism element to the farm itself, with the ultimate dream of building a 14-bed luxury eco-lodge to encourage more people to holiday in the region.

“There’s so much untapped potential here and I think it’s a really undiscovered gem,” smiles Justina.

Though with Drumanilra Farm Kitchen leading the way, we reckon it won’t remain a secret for too much longer.

For further information, visit www.drumanilra.ie or follow on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

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