Our favourite goat farm
The most happily situated goat farm we’ve ever visited is on a tiny island off the south-west coast of Ireland. Lovefood’s Charlotte found it this spring.
Remote goats
I’d heard a rumour that there was a goat farm on top of a hill in Cape Clear, a remote island off the coast of County Cork. Being the last day of our Irish holiday, we drove for an hour to Baltimore and then caught a 40 minute ferry across the choppy Atlantic Ocean to Cape Clear, all for the sake of these goats.
It’s a lengthy uphill climb to Cléire Goats visitor farm (the only other attractions on the island are a heritage centre and a bird observatory) which, despite the swarms of midges, is worth doing if only for the spectacular views of Roaring Water Bay. You might meet golden Labrador Lucy, who lives next door to the goat farm and loves a good pat.
Ed Harper (pictured left) runs and lives on the farm and is more than happy to take visitors on tours. We were shown around by Ed’s apprentice Vanessa O’Sullivan (pictured above), who told us that goats are even friendlier than dogs: “They love being cuddled - especially the young kids.”
Vanessa is originally from Dublin, but came over to County Cork in search of work. "Amazingly, I ended up here on Cape Clear," she said. "It’s a far cry from what most people know – it’s so quiet and serene. In fact, there are probably more goats than there are people!”
Sausages, cheese and ice cream
She added: “People often ask me how I can spend all day with these wonderful creatures, and give each one their own name [all the goats are christened after cakes – here I am holding ‘Stollen’], and yet still be happy to sell them for meat. At first, it was heart-breaking. But now I realise that I can eat goat meat from Cape Clear, because I know first-hand about how much love and attention goes into the rearing of the animals.”
You can buy Cléire’s homemade goats’ sausages, cheese and ice cream straight from Ed’s front door. We tried both vanilla and Baileys ice cream flavours, and were struck by how clean the aftertaste was – it didn’t feel as fatty as regular ice cream.
“There are loads of benefits to drinking goat’s milk,” said Vanessa. “I used to get terrible hay fever, but it disappeared completely when I swopped from cow's to goat's milk.”
Visitors can also enrol on a ‘goat husbandry’ course to learn how to handle and manage the animals. You can find out more and see photos of all the goats on the Cléire Goat Farm Facebook page.
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Tomato tart with goat's cheese
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