Why is it called St Tola?

After a lifetime living and working abroad, Meg and Derrick Gordon settled in the village of Inagh in the late 1970s. They wanted to make goat cheese. Cheesemaking had all but died out in Ireland at the time, so Meg went to Normandy in France to learn the craft.

She noticed that many French cheeses were named after saints (Saint André, Saint Nectaire, Saint Marcellin), because the art of making cheese, beer and wine was developed in the monasteries and abbeys of medieval Europe. Close to Inagh village lies an archaeological site called Dysert O'Dea, where the ruins of a 12th-century church, a holy well and a fine stone cross are all dedicated to St Tola. So Meg brought back the tradition of saints and, with St Tola, tied the cheese to the land here.