Sessions, salmon and smoke signals: 35 years of Burren Smokehouse

A sense of adventure and serendipity led Birgitta Hedin from Sweden to the West of Ireland. 35 years later her Burren Smokehouse is still making waves, writes Joe McNamee

Birgitta Hedin-Curtin from Burren Smokehouse. Picture: Miki Barlok

In the summer of 1981, two 18-year-old Swedish friends set off on their first grand adventure, taking the ferry from Gothenburg to Newcastle. 

From there, they switched to the thumb-power of hitching, a next destination usually in mind but no fixed schedule for getting there, pretty much making it up as they went along.