2025 Blas na hÉireann Producers’ Champion

Proud. Humbled. Grateful. And, for a long moment when I first heard, speechless.

Now, that’s something which – if you’ve ever met me – you might just find hard to believe. But it does happen! Getting the news that I was one of the three 2025 Blas na hÉireann Producers’ Champions on a phone call from Blas founder and chair Artie Clifford left me, as I told him then, flabbergasted. I thought we were talking about times for judging this year’s Blas na hÉireann; I didn’t realise that he had other things in mind.

I’m delighted to be accepting this award with fellow champions Anthony O’Toole and Santina Kennedy, food-loving friends and colleagues with whom I’ve been fortunate enough to collaborate at events in the past. What makes this incredibly special is the fact that these awards are voted for by the producers, the hardworking people who make the best of Irish food and drinks that I get to write about.

After a swift and efficient photoshoot with Jolene Cronin last Sunday (there’s me, balancing on a tree stump and trying not to fall into the wild garlic at my feet), the news broke today with a feature by Janine Kennedy in Irish Country Living in this week’s Farmers Journal: For the first time ever, Blas na h’Éireann has named three Producers’ Champions

It’s strange to be the focus of the story instead of the storyteller at the moment but I know it’s only temporary. Tomorrow I’ll be back doing what I do best: writing and talking about Irish food from seed to plate and celebrating the Irish producers that grow and make the food that delights and nourishes us.