Pub GuideGaffney, Rachel
RACHEL GAFFNEY is the owner of Rachel Gaffney’s Real Ireland, an emerging Irish lifestyle brand founded in 2001 featuring quality Irish products. Traditional Irish butter shortbread was the inaugural product made with real Irish butter 10 years ago.
In January 2011, the company launched the Irish kitchen textile range made in Ireland by Charles Gallen Irish Linen at Showcase Ireland, a large trade show held annually in Dublin. Gaffney is in pre-production with Handmade TV for The Irish Kitchen, a video cookbook comprised of 50 video recipes from cooks across Ireland, as well as broadcast television and a web series entitled Rachel Gaffney's Real Ireland, a lifestyles TV magazine to be filmed in Ireland with Gaffney introducing Ireland, her crafts people, artisans, food producers and their products to American audiences.
The Irish Kitchen video recipes will be distributed via Handmade's vast digital network, while Rachel Gaffney’s Real Ireland is seeking sponsor support for a run on public television networks worldwide.
A native of Co. Cork, Gaffney, her husband and two sons now reside in Dallas, where her husband is employed with AON. The family moved to the U.S. in 1996 after Gaffney’s husband was transferred from London.
“Traditional means the handing down from generation to generation. This is an art that I fear we are losing,” says Gaffney about her Irish heritage.
“It is my responsibility to share these stories with my children, through the food I cook, through the values we share and through my work. Since I began my company 10 years ago I have watched it evolve into a storytelling business -- almost!
“This is what I do. I tell stories. I am by no means a potter or a qualified chef, gardener, historian or weaver, but I do know the people who are and I want to share that with everyone.”
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