Hugh Robson – Glencarn Farm

Hugh Robson

Glencarn Farm

We begin where every good chef, every good producer, every person who wants to serve impeccable food must begin: at the farm and with the farmer. Hugh Robson’s Glencarn Farm is cradled in a north–south valley that neighbours Father Ted’s home. No, Hugh doesn’t live on Craggy Island; rather, the house used as the priests’ home in the beloved Channel 4 comedy series is just up the hill and over a bit from his 365 organic acres.

Neither ‘farmer’ nor ‘chef ’ might have been what was expected of the son of a Dutch nurse and an Irish doctor who met in London during the Second World War. Though an admittedly good student, Hugh bridled at the institutionalised brutality of boarding schools in England and the USA. Though TrinityCollege Dublin called him to study natural sciences, he had no intention of following his father – by now a respected researcher in the field of tuberculosis – into medicine, nor in pursuing a teaching career after his experiences at school.

It was cooking that fuelled Hugh’s imagination from an early age. He reckons the passion was sparked by his mother, an expert cook, who died when he and his four brothers were still quite young. It might have also had something to do with the food at those boarding schools. Whatever the reason, Hugh excelled at catering college in Geneva, Switzerland.

Requisite placements during college brought him to Scotland and then back to Ireland, where he worked in various management roles in hotels around the country. Then, when an opportunity arose in Bettystown, County Meath, Hugh and his new wife, Mary, purchased a former coastguard station and set out to run it as an upmarket seafood restaurant.

Their reputation flourished, and The Coast Guard restaurant became the 1970s destination for high-end fish, shellfish and hand-cut steaks.

Mary died and Hugh left the restaurant business and moved to farm sheep in Portarlington. Hugh married again, to Isabell. They wanted to make the leap from high-intensity farming (they bred some 350 ewes for lamb) to organics, and his brother lived in Corofin. So enamoured with the area were Hugh and Isabell that they spent the bulk of two years searching out a place to establish their dream of setting up an organic farm upon which to retire.

The economic crisis of the 1980s, however, saw their mortgage interest shoot well into the double digits and the hobby farm had to turn a profit and turn it quickly.

The pine marten made farming sheep next to impossible, so they shifted from sheep to suckler cattle and pigs for producing organic beef and pork. It is the basis of the farm’s business to this day, though the next-generation Robsons may have something to say about that: glamping, horse training and adventure tourism are on their minds. Meanwhile, one of Hugh’s older sons, Eric, is working in Dublin at the ever-expanding Ely family of restaurants and wine bars in the city.

Organic beef and pork (as well as sourced organic lamb from the Burren), raised and processed by Hugh and supplied to Ely, may be how many people know of the Burren’s reputation for quality meats now. A few decades ago, however, Hugh was evangelising about the quality of its product at Dublin’s open-air markets.

From night-shift-working South African immigrants taking home specially made Boerewors sausages to the D4 crowd’s hand-cut steaks and chops, Hugh filled Dublin’s belly with exquisite Burren meat while filling their ears with stories of why and how the product is so very good. With one or, occasionally, two extra pairs of hands, Hugh was selling more on a Saturday than most butchers outside of urban Dublin were selling in a week.

Hugh plans to get to that long-awaited, wellearned retirement in the not-too-distant future. He’s making fewer of the delivery trips to Dublin these days and aims to spend more time in the flower gardens and to build up a vegetable bed or two. He is concerned that climate change will alter the way that the farm is run and whether the next generation will be able to make a living on the land.

It is the remoteness that Hugh has come to love about the Burren. It’s the sort of place where a man can put his mind and his back into his work of choice without interruptions or expectations from others. And while for a good few days of the year his valley is neither above nor below but actually in the clouds, he finds a beauty about the place that transcends weather, and season, and hopefully will remain. It was cooking that fuelled Hugh’s imagination from an early age

A Farmhouse Supper

Suckling pig for 6? Don’t worry, it’s not even half a pig! You’ll need to contact your butcher a few days in advance to get the right cuts, but this is a dinner party your guests will talk about for a long time. The addition of Robbie McCauley’s braised red cabbage (page 89) would beat Banagher.

STARTER ‘Craggy Island’ lamb and almond tagine MAIN Roast Glencarn suckling pig with herb and apple pan sauce SIDES Cider-glazed potatoes Baked chutney apples DESSERT Lemon and redcurrant posset with Scottish shortbreads