When Ronan Byrne worked in the treasury department of a fund company at Dublin’s International Financial Services Centre, he never felt entirely comfortable wearing a suit.
“If I wore a suit for half-an-hour, I looked as if I had been at a wedding for three days,” the 33-year-old said.
Byrne, who has a degree in business studies, soon realised his dream career lay not in the financial sector but food production.
He quit the IFSC in 2007 and went to manage a large dairy farm in Poland. All the while, he was contemplating how he could earn a living from the 35-acre farm in Knockbrack, Athenry, Co Galway, that had once belonged to his grandparents. In Poland, Byrne finally had his light bulb moment: he would raise free-range chickens on the farm, sell them to farmers’ markets and restaurants, and rebrand himself as the Friendly Farmer.
The gamble paid off: last Monday, Byrne found himself in a suit again. This time he was in the glamorous Residence Club on Dublin’s St Stephen’s Green to receive a food award from Euro-toques Ireland, which represents 180 chefs.
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“When I graduated, the Celtic tiger was taking off and it was the fashion to get a suit-and-tie job,” he said. “I was okay at the job, and able to do it, but it didn’t tick the boxes for me. I had tried to get away from farming but it’s like a drug for me.”
Byrne is one of a slew of Irish people who have abandoned their urban lives to return to the land and carve a career out of artisan food and drink. Exports of food and drink jumped 12% last year to a record, at almost €9 billion. The rural artisan business lifestyle is part of that growth, and some of those artisans are at this weekend’s Bloom festival in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. It is an alluring dream for city workers eager to jump off the treadmill.
A recent survey by Millward Brown Lansdowne, a market researcher, revealed that 51% of Irish people thought of agriculture as an attractive career choice.
Michael Kelly cites the Chinese philosopher Confucius when explaining his decision to abandon his software job in the capital to move to Dunmore East in Co Waterford: “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.” When Kelly moved with his wife, Mary, he wanted to write for a living. But then he discovered the garlic he had bought in a Waterford city supermarket had been imported from China, and instead decided to grow his own vegetables.
Determined to inspire others with his passion for self-sufficiency, he set up a grower’s group in Waterford in 2008. Now Kelly works full-time for Grow it Yourself Ireland, a charity that encourages people to grow their own food and gives them the skills to do it. GIY Ireland now has 12,000 members over 100 branches nationwide, and started a UK branch last month.
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Kelly documented his transition from city to country denizen in his book Trading Paces — From Rat Race to Hen Run. He suggests that people who are unhappy with their city careers and have a flair for eking a living out of the land should “embrace the fear”.
“Food is booming in all its facets at the moment, so the opportunities are there,” said Kelly. “I think the motivation has now been joined by opportunities, especially for people who are out of work and can give this a try.
“The zeitgeist is about people growing their own food and making a living out of it but I think some people are doing it out of necessity because they need an income. It was a big leap for me to give up a good salary and follow the dream, but, ultimately, it was the right choice. Now I don’t feel like it’s work at all.”
He found it hard to get excited about the latest software server, he recalls. “When I get up in front of people in a room to talk about GIY, it makes my soul sing. Working in IT never did that.”
Urbanites who are prepared to ditch their addiction to tall skinny lattes for a quiet life in a country cottage should do so with a shot of realism. Farming or setting up an artisan food or drink company in the countryside is not a job so much as a way of life. It can also take years to reap the financial rewards.
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Maurice Gilbert, 54, started growing apple trees in 2006 as a hobby. After his building business dried up, and his 20 staff were left without work, Gilbert turned his apple-growing into a full-time occupation. He now runs Ballyhoura Apple Farm, near Churchtown, Co Cork. Ballyhoura is a joint venture with Gerry Murphy, a venture capitalist who sold Great Gas Petroleum to DCC in 2009. Murphy was also the executive producer of Bloom, a film starring Stephen Rea and in which Gilbert had a small role.
The crop from the 15-acre orchard is pressed into Ballyhoura Pure Irish Apple Juice, now part of the new Taste of Ballyhoura Country brand.
Gilbert travels the nation selling the juice at fairs and farmers’ markets, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who grew vegetables and fruit for Gilbert’s father to sell in Limerick 80 years ago.
“Instead of working nine to five, it’s more like eight in the morning to 12 at night,” he said. “It’s not easy, and you have to do everything yourself. You are only collecting €3 for each bottle of juice, whereas with the building, I was getting cheques of €20,000-€30,000 at a time. I spend a lot of time growing, doing research and coming up with new recipes. It’s not profitable yet, but then nothing really is in the first couple of years.”
At a stall near Kelly’s stand, Trevor Sargent, a former leader of the Green party, is watching a diving beetle devour a tadpole in a pond. Schoolchildren flock behind him to the garden run by the Organic Centre, which promotes an organic lifestyle.
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Sargent, a one-time minister of state for food and horticulture, first turned to gardening to cope with the stress of dealing with Bertie Ahern. After losing his seat in the last election, he wrote a book, called Trevor’s Kitchen Garden. He sells the vegetables he grows at farmers’ markets, and advises schools on how to create organic gardens.
His advice for people contemplating setting up a food or drink business is to start off by developing it as a hobby. “I know a number of people who are making a satisfying living from growing food for restaurants,” he said. “If someone had a similar idea, there’s nothing like getting the training of doing it as a hobby before taking it seriously. There’s not going to be one particular date where you end one part of your life and start a new one. It’s a bit like turning from a tadpole to a frog, or a caterpillar to a butterfly.”