Óir Tonics: Reviving Ireland’s Seaweed Tradition in the Burren

Seaweed is an amazing and underappreciated natural resource here in Ireland with incredible properties and a long history of traditional uses. Carrageen moss is one of the best known. It’s used as a thickening and gelling agent, often in puddings. It’s also a key ingredient of an Irish folk remedy for respiratory ailments. I cooked up my own cure for an ongoing cough last year, after a visit to The Hopsack health store in Rathmines.

The owner recommended dried carrageen and gave me a recipe which involved stewing the moss with tea, ginger and lemon. I drank the gloopy tea for a few days and my lungs improved. It made me curious about seaweed and its properties.

I also noticed a bottled product in The Hopsack which offers a ready-to-go take on the carrageen tonic – the Moss Boss tonic made by Óir Tonics, based in Ballyvaughan.

I was lucky enough to spend a week in the village of Ballyvaughan in County Clare in early September. It felt like the cusp of two seasons – there were showers, occasional sunny spells, a dip in the ocean and walks along hedgerows full of indigo sloes, glistening blackcurrants and ripe red haws. The limestone pavements of the Burren give the landscape an otherworldly quality, fields full of stone rolling down to the seaweed strewn Atlantic coastline.

So while in Clare, I took the opportunity to get in touch to learn more about Óir Tonics. Since their tonics took off, Óir have established a physical presence – a cafe and shop called The Óír House in Ballyvaughan to showcase what they and other artisan producers do. Marketing and sales manager Anna Courtney offered to meet me there for a chat.

The Óír House opened in mid-June this year, situated just outside Ballyvaughan, close to Bishop’s Quarter beach. I had harboured ambitions to walk out to the cafe and then onwards for a swim, but the busy N67 has no grass verges and lots of speeding coaches. You take your life in your hands when you try to hike here. Luckily, some kind locals ferried me about, so I was able to partake in both the cafe and the swim (which was truly invigorating).

The Óir building is a unique stone structure with an unusual turret feature. It originally was a fish factory, before various outings as a gift shop and a space for weddings and other events. It has stunning views over the bay and a grassy area out the front. Óir make up picnic baskets which you can have on the grounds or buy to takeaway. Inside, there’s a cafe selling Typo coffee, roasted in Mullingar, and a shop with all the Óir products as well as a who’s who of artisanal goods from all over Ireland including smoked fish and cheese. They are launching a full dine-in menu very soon.

 

 

Over a delicious flat white, Anna explained how the business came to be and about what Óir is all about. The company arose from the perfect marriage of an abundant natural resource with traditional and modern herbal knowledge. The woman behind the tonics is Edel Breslin, a trained chef who has worked in kitchens around Ireland and abroad including in local seafood restaurant Monk’s in Ballyvaughan (which is also super). Edel had also studied herbal medicine and had worked in a health food shop in Ennis

When the pandemic happened, she was at a loose end. With most restaurants closed, she felt life working in a kitchen was also not sustainable long term. In the health food shop, she noticed a lot of older women coming in to buy carrageen, which made her curious about its purported benefits. Drawing on her culinary knowledge, she started experimenting at home with the seaweed and came up with the prototype recipe for her Moss Boss tonic – carrageen, apple cider vinegar, ginger and orange juice.  She started to make and sell it on a small local scale, officially launching it at Ennis farmer’s market.

Edel experimented and produced the tonic on a small-scale basis throughout the pandemic. Soon people were telling her they found it helped with things like energy and digestion.  It proved successful enough for her to grow the business with support from the Local Enterprise Office, the BIA Innovator campus in Athenry and the New Frontiers entrepreneur programme.  Óir Tonics was officially launched in December 2022.

Now they do a range of these tonics, all of which are carrageen based. Their flagship product is still the Moss Boss Original which has deviated slightly from the original recipe and now has apple cider vinegar, ginger, orange juice, and some clementine peel and honey.  They do a turmeric and ginger version, a tart cherry one, and a limited-edition lion’s mane and blueberry option.

Óir are committed to what Anna calls a ‘food first’ approach, when Edel noticed that people were buying a lot of different nutritional supplements when she worked in the health food shop, and felt that natural, less processed food products offered a better way to access nutrients. This has been recognised as a food supplement by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, Ireland’s first liquid seaweed food supplement.

So what do the tonics help with? They are all aimed at immune health and improving the gut microbiome through the carrageen, ginger and vinegar. The tonics are also rich in prebiotic and probiotic fibres and contain almost all the essential vitamins and minerals. Because of the seaweed’s rich mineral profile, they are particularly high in iodine, magnesium and calcium.

On top of the general benefits form the core ingredients, each of the tonics have their own more targeted functions. The original is aimed at respiratory issues, the turmeric and ginger is anti-inflammatory, the cherry aims at muscle recovery and sleep, and the lion’s mane for cognitive health and regulating the nervous system.

You might not be sure about drinking seaweed, but they taste really good – refreshing and citrussy with a little tang of salt and the sea, and flavour accents from the other ingredients in each of the variations. The turmeric and ginger one was my favourite. While they are inspired by traditional carrageen recipes, Edel’s experience as a chef certainly gives their products an edge in terms of flavour.

In terms of application, Anna tells me they recommend people take one shot of the tonic daily but if you’re feeling under the weather you can ramp up the dosage a bit.  They do a lot of instore tastings and engagement with customers. She said working with the company has been really rewarding, “it’s great to hear face to face feedback – people find it really good”.

The company is committed to sustainability and use as much local ingredients as they can. Their seaweed is bought from a sixth-generation seaweed harvester from West Clare, the apple cider vinegar is from The Apple Farm in Cahir, their honey is from Kinvara Open Hive, just down the road, and their blueberries are from Banner Berries, also based in Clare. The Lion’s Mane mushrooms are from Garryhinch Mushrooms in Offaly. Everything as far as possible is organic.

Óir have also been diversifying into other products and now produce hand poured candles and Moss Boss herbal tea, which is made from the byproducts from the tonic process. Their tonics are now stocked in health food stores, pharmacies and fine food grocers all across the country.

It’s great to see see this ancient plant being creatively reimagined using contemporary nutritional insights, entrepreneurial nous, and chef know-how to create a modern Irish wellness product with deep west coast roots. And if you’re anywhere near Ballyvaughan, the unique Óir House shop and café is well worth a visit.

Bio: Caitríona Devery is a writer from Offaly but based in Dublin, with interests in food, art, heritage and the environment. She is a member of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild and has written for the UK-based Feast Journal, Dublin’s Rabble magazine as well as District magazine and its offshoot Char.