West Cork Farm Tours launch this Friday

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed TD, will be on hand in Rosscarbery at midday this Friday for the much-anticipated launch of a new agri-tourism initiative.

West Cork Farm Tours is being officially launched by the Minister at the Celtic Ross Hotel, which is one of three partner hotels involved in the project so far, the others being Fernhill House and the Emmet Hotel in Clonakilty. The initiative resulted from a conversation between a number of award winners and guests at the 2016 West Cork Farming Awards ceremony, run by The Southern Star and the Celtic Ross Hotel.

This led to a series of meetings between interested parties, with the farmers including artisan farmer Avril Allshire of Caherbeg Farm, Rosscarbery; beef farmer Tommy Moyles from Ardfield, and dairy farmers John Joe O’Sullivan, Garrane, Rosscarbery; Michael Crowley, Bauravilla, and Denis O’Donovan, Glandore. They have worked with Fáilte Ireland over the past year to get the project up and running and have also been working with various agencies on financing the initiative.

Already, they have had a number of trial runs with visiting groups from as far afield as Texas and Austria being given tours of the various farms involved. The reaction to these was encouraging and showed that there is a demand for such tours, not just for tourists from abroad, but for Irish people as well.

The West Cork Farm Tours logo – designed for the group by Southern Star Creative – will be launched by Minister Creed at the Celtic Ross Hotel on Friday afternoon. For more, see www.westcorkfarmtours.com