Love Irish lamb

SHEEP farmers here and in the rest of Europe are having a challenging time. Several major supermarkets are offering two for the price of one, which means the farmers get half the usual price for their produce.

I love lamb; the sweetness of Irish lamb reared on fresh grass is incomparable. Irish hill lamb is coming into season, so ask your butcher for it. It has a smaller, leaner carcass, and smaller cuts, than the conventional, lowland product, and, due to the variation of vegetation it grazes on — heathers, grasses, furze — over extensive areas of hill and mountain, the meat has a sweeter, richer flavour.

I tasted Blackface lamb in Skibbereen, last week. It has a distinctive flavour, different from Suffolk or Suffolk Texel crosses, from lamb reared on the Knockmealdown mountains, and from those in Co Wicklow and Connemara. Why is it so difficult to identify the difference in butcher shops?