Glen Keen Farm has left no stone unturned in its quest to become Ireland premier agri-tourism attraction. We travelled west to the Wild Atlantic Way and caught up with Catherine O’Grady Powers & her husband Jim Powers to get an insight into this spectacular sheep farm and the wide range of activities that attract visitors from all over the world.
Comprising over 1,400 acres and with a commonage footprint that extends to over 5,500acres, Glen Keen is one of the largest farms in Irelands agri-tourism offering. This single family-owned sheep farm is unique in Ireland, due to its size, location and natural beauty, the area is nestled in an EU designated special area of conservation.
Glen Keen Farm is located on the Wild Atlantic Way, 6.2 miles from Louisburgh on the Leenane road (R335); Mayo’s front door to the Delphi Valley, Killary Harbour and the gateway to the Connemara region. The farm is stunning, complete with waterfalls and breath-taking valleys of the Carrowniskey River, which forges through the centre of the property. The Sheeffry and Mweelrea mountain ranges on the south side of the property, serve as pillars to the Delphi Valley and Connemara region
The experience for scheduled Groups at Glen Keen Farm and Visitor Centre includes: Traditional Turf Cutting, Sheep Herding Demonstrations, Sheep Shearing Demonstrations (seasonal), Traditional Tea rooms, Nature Walks, Peatland Habitats, Archaeological Sites and a Famine Walk.
The visitor centre has a capacity of 250 guests and is equipped with traditional tearooms, craft shop stocked with Irish handmade art and crafts and an historic photographic exhibition, with an extensive menu of traditional Irish dishes available daily.
The farm is steeped in history, tradition and heritage, with the O’Grady family history stemming back to the 1600s when Catherine’s ancestors, the O’Malleys, became tenant farmers at Glen Keen, which was then part of ‘Doolough Farm’ Estate owned by Lord Sligo.
Reflecting on her family’s centuries-long association with Glen Keen Farm, Catherine O’Grady Powers notes: “This farm has been associated with my family since the late 1600s. My ancestors were tenant farmers here under Lord Sligo but like many other families at the time became victims of the evictions. There were once 40 families living this area. In 1847, my great, great grandfather was evicted from here and his son William subsequently started up farming 15 miles away under a different landlord, Sir Roger Palmer.
“When Irish people were gaining their independence and after the formation of the Irish State, the Irish people were becoming landowners again. My grandmother, Margaret (McNamara) O’Grady & her husband Hugh, went to the Land Commission they were granted the right to purchase this farm. My Grandparents worked extremely hard and paid rent and rates and kept the farm going over the decades and then my uncles and my father bought additional fields and commonage rights to add to the farm and it ended up being quite sizeable.
“My grandmother passed away in 1970 but her sons continued with cattle, sheep, horses and all the usual farming activities, including cutting hay and turf etc. I grew up here and I remember back in the 1980s we always had visitors, families who pitched tents or brought motorhomes, they were from all over Europe and the USA. This is a very scenic area and it was always a hotspot for Europeans to stop off and take in the natural beauty and observe activities like turf cutting, which was manual at the time.”
This was something that resonated deeply with Catherine and would become the cornerstone of the commercially-viable Glen Keen Farm and Visitor Centre as it exists today.
“I grew up and moved to London and met my husband, Jim, who is an American pilot,” she continues. “We married in 1999 but I missed home and took every opportunity to come back. We were living in the States and my uncle, who was a Catholic priest, returned home to retire. One day my Uncle, Fr. James called me up and asked would we ever consider moving home and taking over the sheep farm at Glen Keen.
“Considering that my husband was a pilot and I worked in PR in Washington D.C., this seemed like an unusual suggestion but we discussed it amongst ourselves and had a lot of ideas of how we could progress the farm. We were extremely grateful to have been asked and to have been given this fantastic opportunity; we made arrangements to come home in 2000.
“Who could refuse to take over such a beautiful asset? My uncle’s transferred my name legally on the farm and we started to invest a lot of money into the farm’s infrastructure and machinery. My husband continued to work abroad and I started work, marketing with a newly built hotel in Westport, while we also ran the farm. But there were question marks over how we could take it to a sustainable level and that’s where the agri-tourism idea stemmed from. We had to look outside the box at other ways of making the farm profitable and one of the real strengths of Glen Keen Farm was the aesthetic beauty of this area, which is out of this world.”
Once the idea began to germinate, Catherine and her husband quickly realised that they were potentially onto something special: “We started planning commercial activities and did a lot of research,” she recalls. “We were advised to have plenty of space, which would require significant finance, and we were awarded a grant towards the construction of a building under the LEADER, Rural Development Scheme programme. To date, we have invested close to €1m into this project.
“We also had to have an archaeological site survey and an environmental impact study carried out as well as seeking planning permission. Mayo County Council have worked with us throughout and are to be commended for their services and planning clinics.
“We needed a tour operator and things started to happen very quickly from 2012. The first sod was cut on September 1st, 2013 and O’Toole Contractors in Louisburgh were awarded the building contract through a public Tender process and had the doors open by July 11th, 2014. It was a massive achievement to have it open inside nine months but we had to start getting customers in as soon as possible.
“Thankfully, CIE Tours International took a chance on us with a trial tour. I was selling packages of lunch and demonstrations of traditional farming methods and they sent 48 people in on September 10th, 2014. It was a huge success. Neighbours called around and we were overwhelmed by the support we received in making sure the trial was a 100% success. We were awarded one tour a week for 2015 plus additional ad hoc tour business.
“We achieved a 98% customer satisfaction rating for 2015 and won CIE’s overall Gold Award of Excellence for Best Tour Feature in Ireland. We were beside ourselves and CIE awarded us another contract for 2016, we are also working with other tour companies and local hotels.”
As well as a popular tourist attraction, Glen Keen is also one of Ireland’s largest working sheep farms, with some 710 black faced mountain sheep. “We keep the ewe lambs for breeding and some of the males are fattened for our restaurant, while others are sold to other sheep buyers for finishing. The price of black faced lamb fluctuated so much that in 2015 that we introduced Beltex and Texel rams to the flock, which we bred with 90 black faced ewes.”
Glen Keen Farm’s 100-seater restaurant is open to the public from 11am until 5pm from Thursdays until Sundays, private group and coach tours are catered for outside of hours. Regarding the other attractions and activities available to visitors, Catherine adds: “There’s the large craft shop and an outdoor sheep herding demonstration area – George Hughes helps train our sheepdogs, which are trained in both whistle and verbal commands, enabling us to do immersive demonstrations. We have a bog for traditional manual turf cutting demonstrations, guided historical walks, ring forts which date back to the fifth and sixth centuries, old Cilín burial ground where an uncle of Catherine’s was buried as an infant and guided hill walks taking in the lovely waterfall.
“We accommodate school tour groups and my cousin Mary B Davitt provides traditional wool spinning demonstrations. We offer private cooking lessons and group lunches, there is an historical photographic exhibition in the dining room dating back to 1870 for customer’s to enjoy and step back in time through the window of the lenses of William Laurence. Through all our endeavours, we’ve experienced phenomenal local support from our staff, friends, neighbours and local businesses and we’re lucky to have such a wonderful community around us.”
Glen Keen Farm is steeped in tradition and heritage, rendering it timeless and almost magical – a portal between Ireland’s past and present. Catherine’s ancestors lived through very difficult times – one suspects that if they could see the farm now, they’d be extremely proud!
Glen Keen Farm,
Louisburgh,
County Mayo.
Telephone 087 6167396
Email: [email protected]
Web: glenkeenfarm.com
Facebook; www.facebook.com/glenkeenfarm
Seasonal Opening Hours; Thursday – Sunday 11.00am – 5.00pm
Group Booking Reservations contact 087 6167396.
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 4 No 6, July/August 2016
