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Ice Cream Ireland
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The trials, tests, travels, and tribulations of an Irish ice cream man in Dingle, Ireland with recipes included.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'musings'
Ahhh, A Decade of Ice Cream!
Amazing as it seems, we’re completing our 10th year of Murphys Ice Cream. I thought, perhaps, I’d try to write up a Top Ten highlights of the decade of ice cream, even though there were so many amazing moments… First Ten Years of M...
Sunsets and Parties
We’ve been having the most beautiful weather here in Co. Kerry, and yesterday, driving home from our Killarney shop, I was treated to the most amazing sunset (photo above) as I drove past Inch Strand. It’s almost as if the elements are d...
A Flood of Emotions
The rain continues to pour down, and the flooded streets and angry waters seem to reflect the mood of the country after last night’s soccer defeat to France. I enjoy watching soccer, but I am not a mad soccer fan. And yet, I could help being s...
A Flood of Emotions
The rain continues to pour down, and the flooded streets and angry waters seem to reflect the mood of the country after last night’s soccer defeat to France. I enjoy watching soccer, but I am not a mad soccer fan. And yet, I could help being s...
€1.5 Billon Loss to Economy “Regrettable?”
As an ice cream man and not an economist, I’ve been trying to avoid getting angry about how the current economic mess is being handled in this country, but that is becoming increasingly difficult. The government seems to have only two plans of ...
€1.5 Billon Loss to Economy “Regrettable?”
As an ice cream man and not an economist, I’ve been trying to avoid getting angry about how the current economic mess is being handled in this country, but that is becoming increasingly difficult. The government seems to have only two plans of ...
Short List Announced for ‘09 Food Awards
The short list has been announced for the 2009 Blas na hEireann awards, and you can see the three finalists for each category here. It was very competitive again this year, with nearly 800 entries. The winners will be announced on Friday, but everyo...
Plain or Chunks? Is it a Gender Thing?
The Ice Cream Journal put me on to the story that Mintel, a food research company, conducted a study that showed that 70% of men prefer plain flavours of ice cream such as chocolate or vanilla, while 74% of women like their ice cream with chocol...
Another Country
It’s amazing how, after a long summer of rain, a bit of sunshine can make such an incredible difference. The sea suddenly looks inviting instead of angry, the landscape softens and the horizons widen. Those of us living here, I think, appreciat...
Ciarraí Abú – A Big Day Out
It might have been another wet summer in Ireland, and the economy doesn’t look like improving any time soon, but at least here in the Kingdom of Kerry we can look forward to a big day out in September. Kerry may not have defeated Meath in scint...
The Joys of Shopkeeping
There are some who think working in a shop is a poor profession, but I have to say that the hours I manage to spend in our own shops are some of the best hours of my week. It might seem obvious, but we wouldn’t exist without our customers, and ...
Bandit Country? Open Letter to Sunday Times
Like many people who work in the tourist industry in Ireland, we here at Murphys Ice Cream, have been fuming for a few days over an article published in the last Sunday Times. For those of you who didn’t read it, it’s called “Bandit...
I’m a Bad Blogger
I’m sorry if I haven’t been keeping this up as I should, but here’s why (photo). Besides being the busy season for ice cream, my sister arrived in for a week with her two children, and it’s been a cousin fest and most enjoyabl...
Ice Cream Economics - Ronaldo or Anglo Irish?
Now I know I’m just an ice cream man and not an economist, but I think I might have the answer to Ireland’s economic woes. As everyone knows, Christiano Ronaldo has been sold to Real Madrid for £80 million. Sounds a huge amount, doesn...
My apologies!
I’m so sorry about the site disruption here over the last days. I was trying to migrate the site to a new server and failed miserably. The good people at Blacknight are helping now, and hopefully we’ll be able to do it without any more do...
Irish Foods Under Threat
On Saturday, the Irish Times had an article about how Irish brands were going to start disappearing from the shelves of Tesco as the supermarket chain wants to have Irish shops mirror their British shops in terms of offerings. They will start removi...
A Marketing Dilemma
As everyone knows, there has been a lot of bad press about banks recently (and with good cause, it seems, for the most part). However, I have to say that our local bank manager at AIB Dingle has been extremely supportive, helpful, and has extended ...
19-16 Patriot Excise Act
I try to keep away from politics on this site, but this came in, and it’s not good news for coffee and sweet lovers! Government sources today revealed that ministers have endorsed the so-called “19-16 Patriot Excise Act,” and the proposal...
A Web of Connectivity
There’s been so much talk in Ireland recently about prices and about cutting back - companies cutting their cost base and consumers reducing their spend. While this is natural in a recession, and while both consumers and companies have to adj...
Spring Cleaning and Irish Food Blogs
I have to admit that between getting the business ready for the season, adding the odd blog post, twittering away, and just simply trying to get through huge volumes of emails, I’ve been very bad about both keeping up with other people’...
Twitter, twitter, tweet
Although I have been blogging for some years now, I have been a bit slow to embrace some of the other new media, such as Twitter. One of the reasons, I suppose, is that it’s hard enough to cope with the volumes of email coming at me already a...
Sour Grape and 20 Other Irish Flavours
I’m sure everybody knows about the Ben & Jerry Yes, Pecan Obama-homage flavour that made the rounds of the internet last year. Lately, there’s been flavour ideas for departed President Bush including some of my favourites: Nut̵...
You know you’re a blogger when…
You know you’re a real blogger when even as a tiny company, you can get a reaction from a huge company. In this case, Ben & Jerry has decided to pay for the google search “ice cream ireland” so that their site will come up abo...
Are we really that expensive?
Since I’ve come back from Tokyo, I’ve been digesting what I experienced and thinking a lot about the huge range of premium food products on offer there. It was actually quite a shock in that for all of the wealth generated during the...
A New Look for the New Year
Here’s a new look for ice cream Ireland, since my old theme was giving some trouble. I’ve adapted it from Tropicala by LetsEat, and I hope you like it!...
A Little Bump
I wrote some time ago about ice cream and fertility, and it would appear that ice cream is indeed powerful, since my girlfriend (and serious ice cream-o-holic) has become pregnant. As you can see from the scan above, there is little doubt as to the...
Hope
I hate to bring politics onto these ice cream pages, but I feel I must write a few lines just expressing the relief and hope for the future after last night’s election results in the US. As someone born in NY, I was raised on hope and dreams...
Nothing Like a Good Waffle
Here’s what I’ve been working on - waffles and ice cream. It is, we think, a great option for the winter in our shops, especially this winter with all the gloomy recession talk and abounding worries. Hopefully a warm waffle with ice cr...
Under the Rainbow
Like many people, I suppose, I’ve always wondered what’s at the end of the rainbow. Well, I think I might have an answer. After snapping the above photo at the back of the house, I came out the front, and saw the rainbow again, seeming...
Any Ideas?
We’ve been working on our meringues again (recipe here), and here’s a dessert that we’d like to introduce into the shops. It’s a meringue nest base, filled with cream. On top of that is a scoop of ice cream, some sauce, some...
