From this Monday, May 9 to 15, “Eat Only Irish Week” will kick in after the single tweet by Brendan Allen of Castlemine Farm in Roscommon has set him to be Ireland’s latest Internet sensation. A few short weeks ago Brendan was a typical, unknown and unsung Irish farmer, but today, thanks to the power of social media, Brendan now has followers in every continent and is at the forefront of promoting Irish produce to the world. It all began with an innocent tweet.
Have you ever considered where your food comes from? Brendan does, every day, and so he wondered on Twitter “whether it would be possible to live solely on Irish produce?” The Producer of TV3’s upcoming series Farmers – A Year On The Land, Steven Lock, jokingly responded with a – “I bet you couldn’t #eatonlyirishforaweek!”. In Roscommon a challenge like that is not to be taken lightly and so Brendan responded with an “of course I can!” In Twitterland, the Twitteratti, sensing a good fight, immediately piled in with thoughts and suggestions of produce and menus and within hours of his first tweet Brendan’s challenge had gone global.
Brendan the farmer from Roscommon now has a website and a Facebook Page and hundreds of supporters who are going to join him to #eatonlyirishforaweek from the 9th -15th May 2011.
To make the challenge fair Brendan is going to exclude his own Castlemine Farm produce, but it is not going to be as easy as you might think! Ireland has magnificent produce but there are some things that are hard to replace… No coffee and no tea unless of the boiled nettle variety, fruit and vegetables must be seasonal, no rice or pasta or olive oil and where will he find Irish salt and pepper? To make it a little easier on Brendan and all the other participants, Brendan and his supporters are sharing menu ideas for the week on the website www.eatonlyirish.com. Apple farmer Con Trass is just one farmer who has responded to the challenge by offering free delivery on his juice and apples to anyone participating in the week.
The interest in May 9th-15th is already hotting up. Restaurants are joining in with #cookonlyirishforaweek and #shoponlyirishforaweek is attempting to persuade the big supermarkets to stock more Irish produce.
