Every October, while Alpine farmers bring their cows down the mountain for winter, the Burren does the opposite. Here, cattle are marched up the hills – an annual reversal that sounds like madness but makes perfect sense once you’ve stood on the limestone. What looks like bare rock is in fact 720 square kilometres of karst, porous enough to drain in minutes, warm enough to hold summer heat. In winter, frost sweetens the wiry grasses, springs bubble back to life, and the cows, apparently satisfied with the arrangement, settle in.

It’s this unlikely system – officially recognised in 2019 as part of Ireland’s Intangible Cultural Heritage – that the Burren gathers to celebrate each October with The Winterage Weekend. On Sunday, October 26th, Frank McCormack, a local farmer, will lead his herd through the stone-walled passes, trailed by hundreds of walkers in the annual cattle drive. Around it, farm walks, Burren beef burgers from food trucks and the Burren Food Fayre make a festival of the region’s produce, from Linnalla ice cream to Burren Blossom honey.

The beef, raised on winter pasture and fattened on limestone grass, ends up on the €125 tasting menu at Homestead Cottage – a 200-year-old thatched house outside Doolin where Robbie McCauley and his French wife Sophie have turned low beams and turf smoke into Michelin-star dining. They opened in 2021; by 2023 the inspectors had already found their way up the boreen and handed over a star.

[ ‘It is a bit scary’: How the couple behind Homestead Cottage won a Michelin starOpens in new window ]

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