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Food tourism is becoming one of the biggest growth markets – the search for authenticity is just driving it.
What can be more authentic than Irish produce for an agricultural show?
Shows have been around for 100 years; the baking, food and vegetables are all a very strong part of their history.
You can’t have a more cultural experience than going to a show because they’re the perfect event for the international visitor coming to Ireland.
I’ve been going to shows around the country with dad and mum since I was five.
Margaret Jeffares of Good Food Ireland photographed at her home/work/farm in Rosslare.
I grew up on a primarily dairy farm, close to Shannon Airport, and my father showed Irish Draught mares when the ‘holy grail’ was the Greenvale championship at Millstreet.
Those mares were crossed with thoroughbreds – often Sunny Light – to produce traditional half-breds, most of which were sold to England and the US.
I always looked forward to the summer holidays, and as soon as the Leaving Cert exams finished, there was a car waiting to get me to Cork Show for the ridden hunter classes.
After Horse Show week, the next outing was going to Millstreet where a friend and I pitched our tent in Noel C’s garden.
My father knew Noel C and that an eye would be kept on us!
Career development
After school I went to the US where I practiced dressage with the Olympic rider Dorothy Morkis.
I then took 15 years away from horses while I developed my career.
I started in the airline business, working in ground operations for Aer Lingus and Ryanair. I was their station manager in Knock Airport for two years.
Then I went from Mayo to Wexford when I married Des, a third-generation blackcurrant farmer.
Many farmhouses had a blackcurrant bush growing in the backyard, now there’s no other commercial grower in Ireland.
It’s very challenging competing with cheaper fruit coming in from overseas.
We produce Mr Jeffares Blackcurrants’ juice cordial too and there’s always a bucket of blackcurrants in the feed room as some of the horses get a fistful in their feed.
Blackcurrants are incredible for muscle fatigue, full of antioxidants and Omegas 3, 6 and 9.
Foundation mares
Dad told us he had a super mare in the yard belonging to Tom Casey – he would have shown Tom’s horses then – and said ‘I think you should buy her’.
That was our foundation mare Corrib Eva (Salluceva) and then we bought Debbies Clover (Farney Clover).
Both are very different types and all the Ballykelly horses go back to either mare.
Corrib Eva’s mother, grandmother and great grandmother all won in Dublin – our first win there was in 2006 when Eva won the stinted mare class and reserve championship.
Debbies Clover won the Breeders’ Championship the following year so winning there two years in a row was unbelievable.
We had our first All-Ireland win with Ballykelly Emperor (Emperor Augustus - Debbies Clover) at Bannow – our first All-Ireland win with one of our homebreds.
His full-sisters also won All-Irelands; Ballykelly Empress at Kildysart and Ballykelly Debbies Belle at Mountbellew.
Corrib Eva’s first two foals were fillies and after that she had colts.
We covered her twice with Gortfree Hero, praying to get that traditional filly foal and instead got two colts, including Flashdance.
Margaret, with her parents Tom and Teresa from Quin, and Des with their All-Ireland traditional filly foal champion Ballykelly Jasmine at Mountbellew last September. Photo: Susan Finnerty
She was a beautiful mover so I thought it would be exciting to see, with that action, what she’d produce by a continental sire, so we crossed her with O.B.O.S Quality.
We lost Corrib Eva foaling but that orphan, Ballykelly Eva, won the Dublin two-year-old filly class last year. That’s animals and life.
Ballykelly Hi Hope (Big Sink Hope - Corrib Eva) was sold to Debbie Boylan and after her showing career finished, I got her back as a present.
She was bred to Gortfree Hero and we were blessed that she bred Ballykelly Jasmine.
We finally got that filly!
Now she’s our future traditional broodmare, as I think the traditional Irish horse will be the bigger and stronger part of Ballykelly.
Important lesson
Notalot was the first continental mare I bought from my good friend Rebecca Monahan.
Did I want to go out to buy a continental? There’s horses for courses and Notalot was very special.
Dad always said you have to breed from good mares, it was drilled into me that you had to breed from a good one and while I will never not have traditional, we can have both lines at Ballykelly.
Margaret Jeffares' Ballykelly Flashdance, since sold to England, was young horse champion sat Clonmel Show in July. Photo: Susan Finnerty
Rebecca had a lovely pony and came to dad to get her started in showing.
Over the years she became like family and more or less took over from me when I went off to further pursue my career.
Notalot and Empress were being shown at the same time and dad was laughing, he was like the referee in the middle, saying: ‘Becky, you’ll have to stay in the west and you stay in the east, Margaret’.
Empress was the only one to beat Notalot, when she won the two-year-old final at Kildysart. ‘Lottie’ is great, we didn’t cover her last year as her Diamant de Semilly colt was a very late foal.
Good food Ireland
Good Food Ireland was ahead of its time.
As a marketing and development consultant since 2000, I had a number of restaurant and hotel clients so I wanted to develop a brand strategy with Good Food Ireland.
The majority – hotel, restaurant and pub owners, farmers, fishermen and producers – were doing their jobs for 20 or 30 years and the aim was to bring all those people under the brand and give them that standout recognition.
I love my job because I believe in it and it’s very much what I grew up with.
Being invited to the White House in 2015 was the greatest honour in my career; to literally get an invitation from President Obama and be there on St Patrick’s Day with Enda and Fionnuala Kenny.
It wasn’t just me though, I was representing so many people in Good Food Ireland.
We’re bringing the touRRoir Global Forum to Galway in April, one of the flagship events of the city’s European Region of Gastronomy programme.
It [the forum] will be over before the show season begins!
What makes the shows is the fun and camaraderie, we don’t see each other much over the winter, then it all begins again at Thomastown.
Margaret Jeffares was in conversation with Susan Finnerty.
'It’s quite hard to get traditional horses' - Dominic Furnell
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