Search Results for 'Brendan Allen'

To celebrate the run-up to Christmas we have a fantastic prize of an Irish turkey and ham for one lucky reader.

Last September I wrote a number of Diary entries on the wonderful reception that Galway extended to the survivors of the SS Athenia, torpedoed off the Donegal coast on September 3 1939, the very first day of the war. The ship was sunk by Fritz Julius Lemp, the commander of the U-30. The Athenia was obviously a passenger boat on its way with refugees from Europe to Canada. This wasn’t the start to the war that the German government wanted. Initially it denied that any of its submarines sank the Athenia, and suggested that it was sunk by the British on orders from Winston Churchill in the hope of getting America into the war.

President Mary McAleese has become the newest and most high profile admirer of Castlemine Farms’ produce. President McAleese pre-ordered a rack of lamb for lunch in the local Abbey Hotel on her way through Roscommon town recently.

Brendan and Derek Allen are the inspiration behind Castlemine Free Range. They are the latest generation to be involved in the family farm in Four-Mile-House, Co Roscommon. The Allen brothers saw an opportunity to move away from the more intensive farming methods to more traditional, slow growing style of farming. Their farming philosophy is simply that slowly grown equals greater taste.