Organico Bantry

If you are down in West Cork on holiday or need a break look no further!The Horseshoe Cottage B & B is ideal for a break on Sherkin Island. One of the most beautiful of West Cork’s islands, Read more…

The irish Basket Makers Association is presenting a unique opportunity of free workshops and demonstrations of a range of traditional skills in Future Forests in West Cork, this Saturday.

Martin & Yvonne Flynn, local organic farmers and basket makers, are organising this Traditional Skills day at Future Forests in Kealkil on Saturday the 19th of May (2-6pm). The day is being presented by the Irish Basket Makers Association and will also feature demonstrations/workshops of thatching, coppersmithing, woodcarving, chairseating, pole-laithing, woodturning, garden structures, blacksmithing as well as a kids corner and an organic cafe (we are supplying some of the food from Organico Bakery). Admission is free, as most of these craftspeople are trying to raise their profile and share their knowledge. There will also be baskets for sale, like the one pictured here (we have baskets like this in Organico Shop – our customers love using them to shop with) as well as plants and trees and garden sculpture. From 9pm that night there will be caile agus craic with Johnny Coakley, Noel Burke and friends.

Future Forests is well signposted from Kealkil village and is 15 mins from Bantry, and is well worth a visit all on its own if you have never been there!

Organico Shop, Glengarriff Rd., Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland. Phone +353 (0)27 51391

Organico Cafe is delighted to once again welcome Lorraine Bacchus to the Cafe with her new work for 2007. Lorraine has had a number of other shows since she exhibited with us last winter (click here) and her work has matured and become, if such a thing is possible, even more beautiful. The pieces are mostly oil on canvas, though there are some sketches as well. The theme is Nudes, and the predominant colours are pale – white, with washes of green, blue and greys bringing an ethereal dream-like quality. They are perfect for this time of year when we are experiencing such beautiful vibrant weather and it is somehow fitting to have soothing and calming art on the walls.

The piece pictured above is called ‘transparent’ and is oil on canvas, roughly 25cmx60cm (I don’t have the measurements – that’s a guess). It is selling for €1000.
Organico Cafe is open from 9.30 – 5.30 Monday – Friday; and 9.30 – 5pm on Saturdays. Come and enjoy a delicious vibrant organic lunch and take a look at Lorraine’s work at the same time. The paintings will be with us until the end of the month.

Pina is a Spiritual Healer who has been based in West Cork since 1999. People visit Pina for many different reasons – for relaxation; for relief from pain, grief, and exhaustion; or to recover their energy after a particularly difficult or traumatic episode. In Organico we refer people to Pina when we feel that their situation requires healing on a level that cannot necessarily be reached by herbs, supplements or physical manipulation.

An example would be a person who was having sleep problems which started just after a close bereavement – we can offer her some calming and relaxing herbal preparations but if she also visited Pina her recovery would be a lot more profound.

Pina’s own description of her work is as follows:

‘Pina is a spirit medium for healing who encourages the release of grief, shock, fears, emotional and physical pain and other trauma.

She uses a form of hands on healing, receiving guidance to help you towards regaining trust and inner strength.

In a session you are encouraged to make changes necessary for your personal growth to help you to restoring wholeness.

By recieving divine universal love energy and allowing the guidance of angels to work through her, Pina uses a combination of light, touch, sound and other shamanistic techniques. Blessed Be.’

To many people this will sound very unusual, to put it mildly! However, having had personal experiences of Pina’s healing, I can vouch for her authenticity, her discretion, and for the deep changes that can be felt after a session with her. She practices in Skibbereen on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays and a session takes approximately 1 hour and costs €50.
For information please contact Pina on (028) 51582 (for bookings from Dubin and Skibbereen) or for bookings in Cork please call Dervish (021) 4278245. Email pinalazara@gmail.com.

The West Cork run is in its 2nd year and is well on its way to becoming one of the most enjoyable half marathons in Ireland. The route lies along the main road from Glengarriff to Bantry with the sea to the right of the road for nearly the whole way. This is one of the most beautiful routes in Ireland (I enjoy it every day on the way to work!)

This year the run will take place on the 6th of May and there will be three different events – a half marathon, a 10 k walk and a ‘Kids dash’. Last year Organic entered a team and everyone completed in very good time – and we were all delighted with the tee shirts and mugs that we got to take home as momentos.

For more information on the route or to sign up click here

Organico Cafe is delighted to be involved with the West Cork Literary Festival again this year. the Cafe will be the venue for the Literary Club, which will offer organic food and wine, as well as music, games and a literary quiz. We will open from 6pm – 9pm Monday to Thursday.
The West Cork Literary Festival is a festival for writers and readers alike and attracts at least 150 people to Bantry every year. The programme is very varied – the 2007 workshops range from song writing to media, poetry, and sportswriting – and this year Gavin Kostick of the Fishamble Theater Company is to tutor a playwriting Workshop. Elenaor McEvoy is coming to give the Songwriting Workshop as well as a live performance.
From what we have seen in Organico Cafe the Festival is throughly enjoyed by all the attendees. Many of those who are accepted for publication in the Fish Anthology come and of course the winner (of the €10,000 prize) is sure to attend. The comapartively small numbers mean the Festival creates an intimate and friendly atmosphere, and the Workshop attendees get a lot of hands on attention from the leaders.

For more information on the programme for 2007 click here

Organic food is set to become one of the beggest food trends in Europe in this century, according to an article published in the Sunday Business Post (September 2005 By Suzanne Mitchell). She points out that Organic Baby Food now accounts for almost half of all baby food bought worldwide ( a figure which does not reflect how many parents feed their babies organically because many parents use organic ingredients to make their own babyfood). Furthermore, Mitchell points out that in Itlay local authorities are oblidged to include organic and quality products on their school menus. In the Uk over the last year many schools are trying to use organic suppliers in an attempt to clean up their image after Jaime Oliver lambasted them in his TV programme.

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In Ireland, the organic sector is growing by 10% per year (Mitchell got these stats a year ago – I think it has sped up since then.) Apparently this represent only 1% of the entire Irish food industry – worth an estimated 38 million in 2003. However if we follow European treads then it will be worth 4 times that by the end of this year.

Mitchell’s article is not entirely complimentary to the ‘organic philosophy’. She quotes many sources that question whether organic agriculture is better than conventional agriculture, and whether the resulting foods are better for consumers. She quotes the British Food Commission (2000) as saying:

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”Hundreds of organic products are coming on to the market, including highly processed jelly sweets, sugar-laden organic cereals, organic chicken burgers and even organic cigarettes.”

In Organico, we clearly do buy into the Organic Philosophy; but we also welcome articles of this sort that encourage consumers to question what they are being fed. Unfortunately many organic products are coming onto the market now that are just as harmful to health, if not to the environment, than non-organic foods. We still have to read labels and choose brands that w believe in, not just brands that shout the loudest through their adverts.

When buying for a Wholefood Shop you carry a weight of responsibility in terms of what you choose to stock, as many customers believe that if a product is on a Wholefood Shop shelf it is going to be beneficial for their health. Also, many of us are in this business because we want to sell positive products, so naturally we select the products we sell for their organic credentials – not just their packaging!

Val Manning’s Emporium, in Ballylickey, Bantry, is a fantastic place to stop for a glass of wine, a picnic, or to stock up your store cupboard. Organico Bakery supplies Val with a delicious range of cakes, brownies and cookies, so we have regular opportunities to stop and sample! Yesterday we (me and my sisters Rachel and Aoife) stopped off on our way swimming – we never went swimming. Val asked us if we wanted a coffee, which turned into a cheese board, a salami board and a taste of each of the wines he had open! He has a fantastic range of Irish cheeses – he has been in the food business for years and has built up an incredible network of suppliers from all over Ireland. Most of all we enjoyed his enthusiasm for his food and wine; the delight he takes in knowing where the cheeses come from, who makes them and how they taste. We sat outside on his picnic tables and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! What we didn’t eat was wrapped for us to take home. You do need to have time, as depending on how many other customers there are service can be a little slow (Val isn’t opening a cafe, it’s just a sideline), but as long as the weather is good and you are not in a rush it’s well worth it. 10/10