Labour of love for retiring cheesemaker

A WESTPORT TRADITION Andrew Pelham Burn of Carrowholly Cheese is retiring but is keen for his thriving business to continue.

Áine Ryan

CARROWHOLLY Cheese has been a labour of love for Andrew Pelham Burn for 20 years and will, undoubtedly, become a passionate pursuit for another artisan cheesemaker when the business is put up for sale later this summer. For the moment though the former finance executive, who worked in London for 12 years, must grapple with rheumatoid arthritis, which has meant he has been unable to make his award-winning cheese himself for the last year.
“Cheesemaking is a physical business and it needs a young and enthusiastic person to carry on the business, which is ripe for expansion,” Andre Pelham Burn told The Mayo News yesterday. “It has always been just myself and Mags (his partner) running the business which has a very active clientele from Sligo to Castlebar, Westport and on to Clifden.”
With the whole artisan food production business  burgeoning and the Gouda-style Carrowholly cheese brand – with its varieties of cumin, nettle, garlic and chive, seaweed and plain, a well-established part of many cheeseboards in homes and restaurants along the Connacht seaboard – Pelham Burn’s legacy is bound to continue.
“Indeed, I learned the trade from Irma van Baalen, who originally established Carowholly Cheese and was making it for 15 years before I took over on her retirement,” he explains.
He first sold his cheese on the Octagon before joining the aromaticAladdin’s Cave of produce and crafts at Westport Country Markets, which is held each Thursday morning from 8.30am to 1pm.    
“There is a great camaraderie at Westport Country Markets and we all get on really well. It has been a fantastic market from which to sell the cheese to regular locals and visiting tourists over the years,” Pelham Burn says.  They held a farewell ceremony for him on Thursday last with Kirstin McDonagh, the chairperson making a presentation on behalf of the market.
The process of cheesemaking has changed very little over the centuries other than hygiene standards have significantly improved, says Andrew.
“We collect our milk from the farmer each morning around 6.30am and start making the cheese immediately to ensure freshness. Our cheese is unique because the location of where the cow ate the grass that produced the milk has its particular ecosystem,” he continues.