Birgitta Hedin-Curtin Burren Smokehouse
Lisdoonvarna in County Clare may seem to be the most unlikely place in the world for a farmer’s
daughter from a forestry outside of Nyköping on Sweden’s Baltic coast to settle. It did to me, until I sat down for a coffee with Birgitta Hedin-Curtin. Then it made perfect sense.
Now well known beyond the borders of the Burren and representing artisan Irish produce beyond
the shores of this island, Birgitta wandered into Lisdoonvarna as an eighteen-year-old student in search of traditional music. She’d just finished gymnasium (the Swedish equivalent of the senior
cycle and Leaving Cert) and was travelling with friends to experience Irish culture and begin her casual study of the Atlantic.
A lift from an American musician on his way to Doolin (her intended destination for music)
detoured through the Roadside Tavern where publican Peter Curtin greeted the group with pints of Guinness and his now-famous banter. Mr Curtin neither remembers (nor will he admit) if he knew that he might bump into Birgitta were he to make his way to the session at O’Connor’s pub, but that’s where they met for the second time in one day. Neither looked back.
Their long-distance relationship was necessitated by the difference in tuition for a native Swede
to study at home versus here in Ireland. Finding a way to focus her love for marine biology into a
reason to get back to the west of Ireland, Birgitta landed a fellowship with NUI Galway professor Dr Michael Gormally at the university’s Finavarra Field Research Station.
With 450 varieties of seaweed to study, stunning views across the bay to the Burren proper and
an international community of like-minded young people who were drawn to the area in the early
1980s (let alone that she was little more than half an hour’s drive from Lisdoonvarna and Peter), the phycology student found her footing in the local community and became rooted like a wild hazel in the crag.
Although far from the farm on the Baltic coast where she was raised, Birgitta found similar joys of
foraging, wild game and myriad outdoor activities. One thing she did miss, however, was the hotsmoked eels of her youth.
She and her father would tend fyke nets from their small boat each eel season. The day’s catch
was given over to a local fisherman who ran a small smokehouse using traditional methods and
Birgitta H edin - C urtin
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