Margaret (Mag) Kirwan is a professional business woman, active promoter of local food, mother of 4 children and author of her own cookbook. Mag hails from Goresbridge in County Kilkenny from a large family with strong entrepreneurial traits. While studying for a BSC Biochemistry in UCD, Mag met Ger Kirwan and after a number of years working as a biochemist Mag followed her heart and returned to Kilkenny to join Ger at Goatsbridge Trout Farm.

Goatsbridge was established in 1961 by Ger Kirwan’s parents Rita and Pauric Kirwan and was the first privately own fish farm in the country. Their son Gerard joined the team in 1985 followed by his wife Mag in 1995. Their goal was to extend the Goatsbridge product range beyond fresh trout to added value, smoked trout – hot and cold – under the Goatsbridge brand. In 2010 a state of the art processing and packaging facility was added to the farm to further ensure the quality of trout produced on the farm.

Today they are leading providers of live fish for the restocking of lakes, rivers and fisheries and their daily catch of Goatsbridge Premium Irish Trout is also supplied to hotels, restaurants, caterers, supermarkets and fish wholesalers around the country. Sustainability and Innovation are at the heart of all they do and their product certainly reflects this. They are Irelands only producer of Trout caviar, only smoked trout in a tin and also produce awards winning smoked trout pate. Goatsbridge was the first fish farm to sign up to Bord Bia’s Origin green programme and is committed to sustainable water and energy usage and to social sustainability. They encourage visitors to come and see for themselves the process at their visitor centre and hope to spread the message worldwide to Eat Trout!

Last year, Mag launched a cookbook “Fishwives”, celebrating rainbow trout, ‘the forgotten fish’, which features the trout recipes from 78 women and all of the proceeds were donated to Hospice Africa Uganda.