There’s a circular international flavour to the thriving goat enterprise managed by Lisa Gifford and her daughter, Gypsy, her wife, Richelle and their daughter, on their Drumcong, Co. Leitrim smallholding.
“I was born in New York, about an hour from Manhattan. My father was first generation Irish-born in New York. His mother, Margaret Curry, was baptised in Manorhamilton,” said Lisa.
“His father, Thomas Francis Shields, was born in Leitrim. He learned blacksmithing from his father who worked for the Hamilton family in Manorhamilton.
“As was the case with many New York-Irish, my father was born in the Bronx. Later they moved to Queens, and then having gained a job on Wall Street, moved to Westchester County. We had 20ac during the war and had sheep and a large kitchen garden. I loved that home. My mother’s family of Joys and O’Driscolls were two-three generations from counties Cork/Kerry,” Lisa said.
In 1967, she visited Ireland, gaining employment as a make-up artist at Ardmore Studios, Co. Wicklow. “I thought: ‘This all feels like home’, and that maybe someday I might have a small farm, thus returning Irish land into the family.”
Her career in professional nursing went from nurses aid through what she recalled as “many wonderful years of clinical practice” through to getting her doctorate, in order to teach nursing at the University of San Francisco.
The dream of living in Ireland became possible in 2016: “I was living in Serbia, and came over to Ireland for a goat conference and thought, ‘why not look at some properties?’ That was May 2016. I moved in here to Leitrim Hill, December 6, 2016, on 2-3 ac.
“It’s a lovely home with a famine cottage on the property. It’s now a workshop with outbuildings, including a hay barn which is now Leitrim Hill Creamery,” said Lisa.
By January 2017, she had purchased some goats and obtained a herd number. “I started making artisan goat’s cheese. I had learned in Serbia how to do so, and attended some local markets.
“In 2020, my daughter, Gypsy, her wife, Richelle and their daughter joined me here. We had been noticed at Melton Mowbray Cheese Festival, where we won some awards and assessed that it was time to enhance the production.
“We converted the old hay barn into a lovely creamery, all with local help and great guidance from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), and were officially registered in August 2021 as Leitrim Hill Creamery,” Lisa said.
They make two cheeses, Cnoc Liatrom, a pure goat’s raw milk, soft cheese, and Sliabh an Iarainn, a mixed cow’s/goat’s milk cheese.
“We have successfully ‘aged’ the Cnoc Liatrom which has sold out, and will be available again in spring. We are distributed by Sheridan’s cheesemongers, and are soon to be distributed by La Rousse Foods,” Lisa said.
They have two sweet Leitrim products: pure goat’s milk fudge, and a goat’s milk Cajeta caramel sauce.
“We have been happily selling at four farmers markets: Carrick-on-Shannon, Boyle, Manorhamilton and Sligo IT, and are thrilled that several high-end chefs appreciate our cheeses. We have opened the Hidden Corner Cheese Shop in the Carrick market square as of December 2023,” said Lisa.
“We have been respectfully guided to meet regulations, to develop a business with acceptance and assistance from local development agents,” she said.
Plans for the future are to continue with the Hidden Corner Cheese Shop and the markets.
“We are committed to providing a Leitrim product that honours the many who have gone before us, and our passion for quality raw milk cheese in the tradition of grass-fed milk on land free of pesticides and commercial fertiliser. We fertilise our fields with an organic seaweed concentrate,” Lisa said.
She is particularly interested in rare breed goats such as the Irish Goat: “I have one pure of the Lough Rey breed.
“We feel fortunate to be Irish, to have worked hard in the U.S. and to have returned to the land of our forebears.”