Calling all Lovers of Irish Raw Milk Cheese!

Get ready cheese lovers, the Irish Raw Milk Cheese Week is just around the corner! From May 8th to May 14th 2023, the Irish Raw Milk Cheese Presidia is celebrating the incredible variety and quality of Irish raw milk cheeses with a week-long campaign.

During this special week, we’ll be promoting Irish raw milk cheese at retail stores, restaurants, farmers markets, and farm open days across the country. We’re excited to showcase the work of eight farmhouse cheesemakers, who collectively produce 24 unique and delicious types of Irish raw milk cheese.

This is your chance to discover more about Irish raw milk cheese and indulge in some exclusive and mouth-watering cheeses. Don’t miss out on this fabulous opportunity to learn, taste, and support the farmhouse cheesemaking industry in Ireland.

Mark your calendars for the Irish Raw Milk Cheese Week, and get ready to celebrate the best of Irish cheese!

Cheesemakers Participating in the Irish Raw Milk Cheese Week

Coolattin Cheddar

Coolattin is a raw milk cheddar produced by Tom Burgess using only summer milk from his own herd. Tom has been producing top quality milk from his pasture fed cows in West Wicklow for 20 years. He wanted to develop a product which reflected this quality and decided it would be Mature Raw Milk Cheddar ‘Pasture to Cheddar the same day’.

Corleggy Cheeses

Corleggy means “little windy hill” and is where we make our award-winning Irish artisan farmhouse cheeses, handmade from wholly natural ingredients, in the traditional time-honoured way. Established in 1985.

We believe that small is beautiful. Every cheese is made by hand with production not exceeding 10 tonnes per annum between Goats, Sheep & Cows’ milk cheeses.

Hegarty Cheese

Hegarty Cheese was created in 2001 by Dan Hegarty but the farm has been run for generations by the Hegarty family.

They are located in Whitechurch, a village on the edge of Cork city. The farm is about 150 acres in size and only use the milk produced by their herd of Irish Friesian cows for their cheese production, making their cheese fully traceable from the field to the finished product.

Inagh Farmhouse Cheese

St Tola is produced by former-schoolteacher-turned-cheesemaker Siobhán Ni Ghairbhith and her small team in the town of Inagh just south of The Burren in County Clare. Made with goat’s milk from the farm’s herd of Saanen and Toggenburg goats, it is a mild and creamy cheese when young, but becomes firmer and more pungent as it ages.

Knockanore Farmhouse Cheese

Knockanore Cheese is handmade on the Lonergan family farm in County Waterford, Ireland, using raw milk from their pedigree herd of Friesian cows. The Lonergan family have been farming in the lush rolling countryside of Knockanore for over 60 years. The cheese is a hard-pressed, mature farmhouse cheese made in the cheddar style. The raw milk adopts the flavours of the local pasture on which the cows graze producing a cheddar cheese with a complex creamy flavour, earthy tones and a nutty aroma.

Leitrim Hill Creamery

Leitrim Hill Creamery produces a raw milk soft goats cheese with an unmistakable tart earthy flavour. All raw goat’s milk is sourced directly from their own herd.

Leitrim Hill Creamery cheeses are made using continuous whey starter method. No commercial starter cultures are used.  

Mike’s Fancy Cheese

Mike’s Fancy Cheese is proud to be creating a new tradition of raw milk cheesemaking in Northern Ireland.

We have been making Young Buck for 7 years now, and are a small team consisting of Me(Mike), Jonathan and Emily. We all rotate around cheesemaking duties (ie cleaning) and cheesemongering down at our shop on 41 Little Donegall Street.

This helps us build relationships with our customers, helps us explain why our cheese is constantly changing, and helps us understand the other Irish cheese that we sell in the shop, hopefully passing that on to you!

The Lost Valley Dairy

Here at The Lost Valley Dairy & Creamery we primarily make two cheeses, Carraignamuc & Sobhriste.

​We are a genuine Farmhouse cheese – we milk our own cows and make cheese, butter and yoghurt from that milk.

​We have focussed on simplicity of process. Although influenced by Italian and British recipes we haven’t used imported cultures, we have developed a native, completely local Raw Milk culture, ripening and maturing.

Attention all cheesemongers!

We’re looking for passionate and dedicated cheesemongers to get involved in the upcoming Irish Raw Milk Cheese Week. If you’re a cheesemonger and would like to be a part of this exciting national awareness campaign, we’d love to hear from you.

Please drop us an email to let us know you’re interested in participating. We’ll send you more information about how you can get involved, including ways to promote Irish raw milk cheese in your store, and how to showcase the incredible cheeses being produced by our eight farmhouse cheesemakers.

And don’t forget to download our official Cheese Week poster, which you can display in your store to let your customers know about this special event. Help us spread the word and celebrate the best of Irish raw milk cheese.

We can’t wait to hear from you!