I spent a day with Cork turkey farmers before Christmas — here's what I learned

Free range turkey farming is a labour of love, as Joe McNamee discovers at Healy's farm in Co Cork

Denise and Sean Healy on their farm in Carrignavar, Co Cork. Pictures: Joe McNamee

I eat turkey just once a year. Carvery turkey with ham reminds me of bad boarding school dinners and I’d eat buckets of cold porridge before low fat/high protein ‘healthy option’, industrially-produced turkey slices. But if you serve me up a glistening, golden roasted bird with all the trimmings on Christmas Day, then I’ll be yours forever.

The Christmas turkey can be quite the palaver, especially if that palaver begins with sourcing. For some years, I cooked superb, local, free range birds from Tom Clancy (Ballycotton Free Range) until he, like too many other small farmers, was squeezed out by the industrial food system. I gave up turkey altogether. Then I learned of Denise Healy, married to dairy farmer Sean Healy, and living in Carrignavar, 10 miles north of Cork city.