Knockanore Farmhouse Cheese

Knockanore Cheese is made on the farm in the tiny townland of Ballyneety in the ancient and historic parish of Knockanore, County Waterford. The Irish name ‘Cnoc an Oir’, literally translates as ‘the hill of gold’. It is on these golden and lush rolling hills that Eamonn and Patricia Lonergan and their family keep a herd of 120 pedigree Friesian cows, and every drop of milk that goes into Knockanore Cheese is from these cows.

The cheese is carefully made from rich, full cream, raw cow’s milk, using traditional cheddaring techniques. This results in a firm but slightly open textured hard cheese with a unique and subtle flavour. The cheese is available in vintage red and white, both aged for a minimum of 8 months as well as varieties made with herbs and spices. The most iconic cheese in the range is perhaps the smoked version – smoked in a special smokehouse on the farm using oak locally sourced in the neighbouring town of Lismore.

Knockanore is one of the very few cheeses left in Ireland which can truly be labelled a farmhouse cheese in the true sense of the term, in that it is produced on the farm and using only milk from the farm. It is also one of only a handful of raw milk cheeses still being produced in Ireland.