Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: Young Fishmonger

#Seafood - A former trawlerman has been named as Bord Iascaigh Mhara's (BIM) Young Fishmonger for 2015, as The Irish Times reports.

Gerard Collier of Fisherman's Catch in Clogherhead was selected from a shortlist of five for the accolade, which recognises excellence in product knowledge, customer service and technical skill.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the winner receives a cash prize of €1,000 as well as a study trip to France, while he and his fellow finalists will get a set of professional knives and a place on BIM's retail development workshops, on top of their masterclass with from Kinsale-based chef Martin Shanahan.

"All of our finalists were exceptional throughout every stage of the competition and they should be very proud of their achievements," said Donal Buckley, BIM's business development and innovation director.

"Congratulations to our worthy winner Gerard Collier and his colleagues at Fisherman’s Catch, I hope this experience and the competition prize fund allows you to further develop what is a very successful family business."

Meanwhile, last year's winner James Kirwan of East Coast Seafood in Naas, Co Kildare, spoke of how the prize money allowed him to install a new kitchen in the shop to produce a range of fish soups, burgers and pies, while the study trip "was a real learning curve for me in terms of understanding customers' preferences."

The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

Published in Fishing
Tagged under

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.