Is this the most innovative farm in Ireland? If not, it’s undoubtedly one of the most adventurous.
Over 30 years ago, Pat and Miriam Mulcahy purchased Ballinwillin House, a historic building with 14 acres of land, located close to the town of Mitchelstown in Co. Cork. Their dream was to reintroduce wild boar back into Ireland, and Ballinwillin farm has since become a specialist breeder of organic deer, wild boar and goats. It’s a tale of how a farming family, with limited land resources, pioneered and developed a unique and award-winning artisan food and agritourism business.
“The reintroduction of wild boar to Ireland is something we are quite proud of and passionate about.”
Thinking differently
We started off with a dry stock enterprise at Ballinwillin in 1985. I had a real passion to do something different with the land, and after the first year, we sold off the cattle and began sourcing and importing deer from abroad. The reintroduction of wild boar to Ireland is something we are quite proud of and passionate about. We had succeeded in bringing together on our farm, the first two animals initially consumed as food, by our ancient ancestors; and what’s also unique about our enterprise is that we are – the only organic deer and wild boar farm, across the whole of Britain and Ireland.
Deer and wild boar farming
We went around the world researching deer carcase sizes. We initially bought deer in England and Scotland, but the carcase sizes were too small to be commercially viable. We then travelled to New Zealand and discovered that they had sourced all their deer in Hungary – and that’s what took us to Hungary. The deer we sourced in Hungary in 1985 were the breeding stock for the herd of Hungarian Red deer that we have today on our farm
