Adrian Herlihy runs The Beach on Inishbofin with his wife Orla Day. He talked to us about the unique taste of the local food there, the Bia Bó Finne initiative and a unique project currently underway to develop a craft brew on the island.
Inishbofin is a special place for many people. What first brought you to the island?
I was in the hotel business for my previous life before the pub here in Inishbofin and over the years I worked with a lot of fantastic people in great properties. I started out in a local hotel in my hometown of Loughrea, did a management course in Dromoland Castle and then moved to the Landmark and the Savoy hotels in London. After stints working in Cahernane House Hotel in Killarney and the Lough Erne Golf Resort, I heard about a hotel on an island looking for somebody with a similar background to mine. When I first arrived here on a wet wintery day at the beginning of February there was something lovely about the island. I started work in a hotel here and eventually met my partner in crime and now wife Orla Day. We made the very happy decision to settle here, bought the family business from Orla’s parents and five years down the road we’ve built a beer garden on the waterfront, overhauled our B&B and refurbished the bar. In the summer we’ve live music six nights a week and there’s a great buzz. Inishbofin is a great place to base yourself. There’s a lovely quality of life and we’ve got fantastically loyal repeat visitors who’ve been coming here on holidays for years.
Aside from the day job, you’re also very involved in the Bia Bó Finne initiative showcasing the flavours of the island.
Bia Bó Finne was founded in December 2012 by a few of us who really wanted to see the island become a landmark off the west of Ireland for food. We’ve absolutely fantastic lamb and it’s amazing the different flavour between lamb that’s grazed on Davillaun Island to our east, on Inishlyon, Inishbofin and Inishark. The different herbage on each island results in a different taste profile to the lamb from each place. Nobody uses fertilisers or nitrogens on their land and the grass is naturally salted by the sea so it’s a very clean product.
Once the fishermen are back in action between Paddy’s Day and Good Friday we also have great line-caught pollock, mackerel, local lobster and local hand picked crab every day. Bia Bó Finne was set up to showcase all of this and to nurture, encourage and facilitate small artisanal businesses starting up. We fundraise through the annual Food Festival, which takes place in the first weekend of October. This year will be our fourth food festival and it helps generate a small amount of income for us to encourage indigenous small businesses to create employment to try to keep young people on the island.
We hear that there are also plans to develop a unique Inishbofin Brew?
We’re currently working with a fantastic Master Brewer, Cuilan Loughnane from the White Gypsy Brewery on a pilot project to develop a beer infused with botanicals from the island. A lot of Cuilan’s beers are very uniquely styled and that allows us the ability to do research into the product that will eventually be developed and brewed here. We originally had a style of heather beer in mind because Inishbofin heather has a very distinct fragrance, but we’ve had to do a rethink on that because it’s not in flower the whole year. That’s led to us looking at developing a weiss bier that changes in style depending on what botanicals are available seasonally. Cuilan has this great empathy with us, he’s hugely into sustainability and the brewery is also going to reinvest the profits back towards us – a fantastically generous thing to do. We have some great guys, some of whom are in Oz at the moment, who hope to get an island-based brewery off the ground when they come back. This project will give fantastic direction on what size brewery will be appropriate to put in place here.
Your drinks menu is very supportive of Artisan Producers
It’s exciting times for Irish craft beers, ciders and spirits and people aren’t afraid to try new things. The first craft beer we had on tap was from Eight Degrees, our house gin is Dingle and Stonewell was our first craft cider. We also love to bring wine to people that they wouldn’t necessarily have tasted before. Working with Mary Mulvey of EcoTourism Ireland over the past year has opened our minds more to where our wine comes from, the volume we do and the journey it took to get to us. Now we look at things like whether vineyards have carbon offset strategies and how it’s transported here. We’ve moved to a 100% European wine list, 45% is organic and we also carry a handful of biodynamic wines. It requires a bit of work, but we’ve a great relationship with Tindal Wines who really help us discover small family wineries producing lovely wines with great provenance.
We’ve also been blessed over the years with great guys in the kitchen. Our head chefs come seasonally and they bring great creativity, but when you’re working with such great produce and ingredients the food does all the talking.
The Bia Bó Finne Food festival takes place on Inishbofin September 30th to October 2nd. For information on upcoming events on Inishbofin go to www.Inishbofin.com. For more about The Beach see www.thebeach.ie
Words: Martina Murray
Images: Adrian Herlihy
