Ireland’s Ancient East given extra bite with €50K food heritage project – Butler

Fine Gael TD for Meath West, Ray Butler has today (Monday) said that Ireland’s Ancient East tourism project has been given extra bite with an investment of €49,500 for a new food heritage project. This funding is part of a €1 million Government funding programme for projects involved in the Ireland’s Ancient East initiative.

“The new project called ‘Ireland’s Ancient Eats’ will give visitors an educational experience of the history and heritage of food in Ireland’s Ancient East. Visitors will learn about the timeline of Irish food from ancient times, the story of farming in an Irish context and will gain insight into ‘old school’ traditional methods of food production.

“The project also has an interactional element as visitors can take part in the cooking and consumption of locally-sourced traditional food.

“As part of the initiative a ‘fulacht fiadh’ (outdoor oven) will be constructed in the Boyne Valley, accompanied by a reception area for visitors, all in a high quality landscaped setting.

“Ireland’s Ancient East has been a fantastic development for tourism in Meath. As well as investments in specific new projects such as this one, the initiative highlights the rich history and heritage of the region spanning 5,000 years and where better than Meath for tourists to learn about our history with such important ancient sites as Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth among others. If we can replicate the success of the Wild Atlantic Way on the far side of the country it will be a great achievement.

“Fine Gael has a plan to keep the economic recovery going in Meath and the importance of tourism in this regard simply cannot be underestimated. 2015 is now on course to be a record year for visitor numbers to Ireland and with exciting new projects like ‘Ireland’s Ancient Eats’, Meath can really stand to benefit from our growing tourism numbers in the future.”