50 years on, how a Cork couple became the big cheese of farming

When their cow was producing too much milk in 1976, Veronica and Norman Steele made a life-changing decision, says Robert Hume

Cheese-makers supreme Norman and Veronica Steele in an RTÉ documentary in 1985

Fifty years ago, a young couple faced a dilemma as they tried to eke out a life of self-sufficiency on a farm they had bought in West Cork.

Veronica and Norman Steele were “city drop-outs”, having both studied philosophy in Dublin, before pivoting to Eyeries, near Castletownbere, in 1975.