Dear Amii,
My small Irish business, The Messy Brunette, was featured in the Irish Country Living magazine recently as part of the “12 Makers of Christmas” article.
Maura Bourke of The Messy Brunette creates handmade wooden jewellery in Co Tipperary
I was delighted to be featured and coming from a rural background, this was a proud family moment for me. Features like these are always so helpful to small businesses and Irish Country Living magazine is a great supporter.
Maura Bourke,
Co Tipperary
Janine Kennedy
On New Year’s Eve, I usually forego a huge dinner and, instead, put out a variety of nibbles - Christmas leftovers, cheese platters, fresh veggies with a creamy dip, breads and sliced meats and smoked salmon or trout. It’s a great way to start the new year with a clean fridge.
If I have some cheese I need to use up, I combine 60g mayonnaise, 60g sour cream and 60g cream cheese. Then I add in whichever leftover cheese I like, some chopped, frozen (defrosted) spinach, a squeeze of lemon and a dash of chilli flakes.
I bake that in a 180° oven for 20-25 minutes, until bubbly and golden brown on top. A delicious spinach dip to ring in the new year!
Winter Wonderland ... horses heading for dinner. Sarah Murray from Borrisokane, Co Tipperary captured this pic of her horses in the recent hard frosts
with Dr Catherine Keena,
Teagasc countryside
management specialist
Look out for ferns, evergreen in the bleak midwinter, a spectacular sight when adorned with white frost sparkling in the winter sunshine. Ferns are plants without flowers reproducing by spores not seeds. Fern leaves are called fronds and are tightly coiled when young, unwinding the coil as they expand. Spores are produced on the underside of fronds.
Ferns.
There are many species of native Irish ferns. Bracken is a fern and is native but can cause problems for farming and habitats where it displaces other vegetation. Large triangular fronds on erect stalks up to 2m tall turn brown in winter. Ferns are a different component of our native Irish biodiversity.
the number of restaurants that the Irish Country Living team recommended to try in 2023.
Homemade eggnog that tastes like Christmas.
There are reasons it’s slow. I suppose over the years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, people were reluctant to come here but certainly since I started this business, we’ve seen numbers increasing
John Mc Groary on hiking in Donegal.
Dear Amii,
My small Irish business, The Messy Brunette, was featured in the Irish Country Living magazine recently as part of the “12 Makers of Christmas” article.
Maura Bourke of The Messy Brunette creates handmade wooden jewellery in Co Tipperary
I was delighted to be featured and coming from a rural background, this was a proud family moment for me. Features like these are always so helpful to small businesses and Irish Country Living magazine is a great supporter.
Maura Bourke,
Co Tipperary
Janine Kennedy
On New Year’s Eve, I usually forego a huge dinner and, instead, put out a variety of nibbles - Christmas leftovers, cheese platters, fresh veggies with a creamy dip, breads and sliced meats and smoked salmon or trout. It’s a great way to start the new year with a clean fridge.
If I have some cheese I need to use up, I combine 60g mayonnaise, 60g sour cream and 60g cream cheese. Then I add in whichever leftover cheese I like, some chopped, frozen (defrosted) spinach, a squeeze of lemon and a dash of chilli flakes.
I bake that in a 180° oven for 20-25 minutes, until bubbly and golden brown on top. A delicious spinach dip to ring in the new year!
Winter Wonderland ... horses heading for dinner. Sarah Murray from Borrisokane, Co Tipperary captured this pic of her horses in the recent hard frosts
with Dr Catherine Keena,
Teagasc countryside
management specialist
Look out for ferns, evergreen in the bleak midwinter, a spectacular sight when adorned with white frost sparkling in the winter sunshine. Ferns are plants without flowers reproducing by spores not seeds. Fern leaves are called fronds and are tightly coiled when young, unwinding the coil as they expand. Spores are produced on the underside of fronds.
Ferns.
There are many species of native Irish ferns. Bracken is a fern and is native but can cause problems for farming and habitats where it displaces other vegetation. Large triangular fronds on erect stalks up to 2m tall turn brown in winter. Ferns are a different component of our native Irish biodiversity.
the number of restaurants that the Irish Country Living team recommended to try in 2023.
Homemade eggnog that tastes like Christmas.
There are reasons it’s slow. I suppose over the years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, people were reluctant to come here but certainly since I started this business, we’ve seen numbers increasing
John Mc Groary on hiking in Donegal.
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: