From a kitchen table to the world.

St Tola Goat Cheese was made originally by Meg and Derrick Gordon. Their neighbour and long-time friend Siobhán Ní Gháirbhith took over the business in 1999, and has grown it from a cottage industry to an internationally recognised brand employing a small, dedicated team. Read our story below.

The milk makes the cheese.

We are one of the few Irish cheesemakers who keep our own herd. Many producers buy in all of their milk, but ours comes first and foremost from our own goats. Just south of the Burren, our land is peaty rather than limestone, and it produces grass full of lovely flavours from buttercup, clover and wild herbs. Those flavours come through in the milk, and they are what give our cheese its character.

We use all of the milk from our own farm, and we also buy milk from a young farmer just over the road from us, outside Ennistymon. We never mix the two milks together when we make our range of cheeses.

Our goats are dairy animals, so they don't take kindly to rain or wet ground. We house them mainly indoors and bring fresh grass in to them every single day through the summer, alongside a mix of grains, with fresh straw bedding laid down for them daily. In the other months, when there is no fresh grass, they are fed haylage. It is careful, hands-on work, and the herd is happier and healthier for it.