Denis Brosnan returned to Charleville to address almost 700 people at a fundraiser for St Joseph’s Foundation celebrating 50 years of working with and for people with disabilities.

He recounted how he was recruited by Golden Vale manager Dave O’Loughlin in that same year of 1968. He had come to Charleville to sell dairy detergents, his first job since leaving college two months earlier. Obviously, O’Loughlin liked Brosnan, because he managed to convince him to come work in Charleville. After the death of O’Loughlin in 1971, the more experienced Mike Lenihan was chosen over Brosnan. A group of Kerry farmers saw an opportunity to process their own milk. Eddie Hayes approached Brosnan to set up a milk processing factory in Listowel -–the centre of dairy farming in North Kerry. Brosnan became the first employee and production commenced in 1972 in a factory with no roof.

Thus history began.