The Grubbs of Tipperary* first settled in County Tipperary, Ireland, during the 17th Century and quickly started setting up various enterprises, many relating to food. Eventually, in the 1930s, Samuel and Phyllis Grubb bought Beechmount House and its farm. By the 1950s they were producing dairy-based products (butter and potted cream) and selling them through Spearman’s Italian Delicatessen in Cashel.
Samuel and Phyllis also had four children: Clodagh, Petronelle, Louis and Brian. Clodagh and Petronelle both trained as teachers before embarking on very different paths: Clodagh, along with her husband (John McCormick) and daughter (Julie-Rose), became a puppet-maker, while Petronelle turned to farming and, along with her husband, Peter Clifton Brown, and son Henry, established the flock of sheep that give us the milk for Crozier Blue. Brian now works as an architect and in 2007 designed the new home of Cashel Blue, the Dairy that moved the making of the cheese from the Beechmount House complex (the old hay barn) to a new stand alone, on-farm building, which we have been using since November 2010.
As for Louis, having grown up on Beechmount, he developed a passion for farming and all things natural. He studied Agriculture, followed Botany, at Trinity College, Dublin and then worked as an agricultural advisor in the West of Ireland. Following the passing of his father, in 1978 Louis decided to return to Beechmount and take over the running of the farm, bringing along his wife Jane and their daughter Sarah. At the time Beechmount was a traditional mixed farm with a few hens here, a pig there, et cetera. Deciding to heed the advice he had been dishing out to farmers for the best part of a decade, Louis set about establishing a dairy herd. By 1980, with Sarah that bit older and more independent, Jane who had been raised to appreciate good food and who had worked as a chef before marrying Louis, decided she wanted to capture the fresh, rich and creamy qualities of the milk and started experimenting with different styles of cheeses. Hard cheese, soft cheese and fresh cheese were all made. However, ever the perfectionist, Jane was not happy and eventually she thought of trying to make a blue cheese, creating Cashel Blue. In 1984 Louis became our Founding Father and Jane our Founding Mother.
Today Cashel Blue Farmhouse Cheese, while remaining 100% family owned, has become a community concern, with some members of the Team able to walk or cycle in each morning, and all the Cashel Blue Team living within 15 miles of the Dairy. The Team, which originally consisted of just Louis and Jane, now comprises of 20 members, supported occasionally by the children of some of these. The current Team has been together for an average in excess of 8 years and consists of:
- Louis and Jane Grubb
- Their daughter Sarah and husband Sergio Furno
- Louis Clifton Brown (Louis Grubb’s sister Petronelle’s son)
- Pat Morrissey (who now looks after the Beechmount Farm and is our longest serving member) and Stephen Baskin (Pat’s assistant on the farm)
- Geurt van den Dikkenberg (now our main cheesemaker: by the late 1980s Jane developed a bad back, the infamous cheesemaker’s back, and so taught Geurt how to make Cashel Blue), PJ Ryan (PJ joined us fresh out of Agricultural School in the late 1980s, when he helped Pat on the farm. Later he spread his wings and went to work in Holland for a while before returning to Ireland and various jobs. In the early 2000s be re-joined our Team, this time in the cheesemaking side, where he started as an general assistant and is now a trained cheesemaker and is also responsible for managing the production side of our Team), Mike Nevin and John Donaghy (both assistants to Geurt and PJ in the making side)
- Eileen Ryan (the longest serving member of the “Cheese Team” and PJ Ryan’s mother), Mary Maher, Liz Grogan, Majella Gearon, Helena Koci and Lizzie Kennedy (this is our “Packing Team”, for many years ably supervised by Eileen, who recently decided to take a step back and concentrate mainly on cutting Cashel Blue. Since then Sarah has been managing this Team)
- Edward Kennedy (in theory one of our newest members, Edward joined us in late 2009. However, in the early 2000s he earned his pocket money helping out either in the cheese or Louis in his garden at weekends or during school holidays, before getting full-time work elsewhere. Edward is also Lizzie Kennedy’s older brother)
- Aisling Crowe (one of the most recent additions to our Team, Aisling is office based and helps to keep us all organised, quite a feat!)
- Joan Hayde (the newest member of the Cashel Blue Team, Joan joined us on a temporary basis to help out in the Packing side during our move from the old to the new Dairy at the end of 2010. Luckily for us, and rather surprisingly, Joan decided she enjoyed being a member of the Cashel Blue Team and now helps out when and where needed)
* For more information on The Grubbs of Tipperary click here