New Beginnings - How Sligo Food Tours came about

Neantóg I - II - III

Sligo Food Tours is a culmination of all that has gone on since we landed in Glengarrif in the Winter of 1984 as “Tourists with a mission” to find a suitable farm for our project “new home abroad” which became Neantóg I. Neantóg is the Irish for nettle, an invogorating plant, stinging and healing at the same time and a great wild food!

Neantóg I: Organic Producers

After coming back at Easter 1985 for another visit and buying a farm in June we finally arrived in a fully loaded camper van with two small children in the Summer of 1985. At the time we didn’t know where the journey would take us, but we were very determined to give it our best shot. So we became farmers, growers, bakers and cheese makers: in short organic food producers (and builders as well, renovating a cottage and building a house).

Neantóg II: Teachers, Practitioners and Mentors

Getting involved with the organic movement in the Northwest and especially The Organic Centre project in Rossinver, where we began giving courses as early as 1996, changed life at Neantóg. We stopped cheesemaking as a business in 2003 and Gaby, having graduated as a Naturopath and Herbalist in 2004, started working from home in her clinic. Hans dedicated the next 22 years of his life to The Organic Centre to develop their courses and training programmes, helping to make the centre renowned nationally and internationally. Have a look at The Organic Centre Milestones. Throughout all those years we were growing most of our own food, baking our own rye sourdough and making cheese for ourselves. Gaby worked as a cooking instructor on many school and community garden projects and published her first cookbook in 2008.

Neantóg III: There is no such thing as retirement!

Being involved with the Sligo Food Festival since 1994 and becoming a member of the Sligo Food Trail from it’s formation in 2015, we began offering foraging experiences for tourists and tour groups. Hans has now retired from The Organic Centre and is ‘refiring’ with Gaby at home to concentrate on developing Neantóg Kitchen Garden School’s programme of courses and workshops on gardening, sourdough baking, cheesemaking, fermenting and foraging and natural herbal remedies; while Gaby is still operating her naturopathic clinic at Neantóg on a part-time basis. Having forged connections to cafés, restaurants and shops in Sligo as producers and mentored and inspired many chefs through courses it was only a matter of time before Sligo Food Tours would be born featuring our food hot spots and the hard working people behind the businesses.

We are really looking forward to bring you on an exciting food experience and hope you will enjoy the journey too!