When Myrtle & Ivan Allen opened their family home, Ballymaloe House, to the public in 1964, the world was a much more sustainable place. In the early 1980’s Ivan wanted to move away from using fossil fuels as an energy source. After a few years of research, in 1984 his son Rory purchased Ballymaloe’s first Biomass straw boiler & Ballymaloe has not used fossil fuels since that year.
Therefore, for almost 40 years, Ballymaloe Farm has provided Ballymaloe House with the fuel for heat & hot water. Ballymaloe estimates that we would have burnt over 600,000 litres of oil over this time.
Ballymaloe House & farm recently installed their third Biomass boiler. This Energy Boiler provides heating & hot water throughout the house and outbuildings & heats water for our kitchen to serve an average of 100 diners per night. It keeps our café, shop, Grainstore & Carrigaun Room warm & clean.
This boiler also heats the swimming pool in the summer & dries around 2,000 tonnes of grain on the farm annually.
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For 57 years, the Allen family have continued to research and embrace green initiatives throughout every aspect of the guesthouse, restaurant, shop, café, Grainstore, gardens, cookery school and farm operations. For instance, in 2004 the Ballymaloe farm planted 10 acres / 5,300 trees on the estate, now equating to over 1,000 tonnes of carbon stored. The farm also installed 147Kw of PV solar panels in 2021, making Ballymaloe House independent of the ESB national grid, when the sun shines.
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Leave No Trace Ireland is a network of organisations & individuals promoting the responsible recreational use of the outdoors. As nature has become a new luxury, our collective mark on the environment & nature, increases. At the heart of the Leave No Trace initiative are 7 principles for reducing the damage caused by outdoor activities: