Six generations on the same grass.
Purebred Hereford, Angus and Belted Galloway, reared out on grass at Thomastown and sold to some of Ireland’s leading kitchens.
Ten months of the year, out on grass.
Summerhill sits a few miles outside Thomastown, in the river country of south Kilkenny. The cattle are out on grass from spring until the ground turns, and they take their time.
Summer pasture at Summerhill, Thomastown.
Three breeds, brought on slowly.
None of them are quick to finish. That is the reason they are here.
Hereford
The breed the Williams family had a hand in spreading across Ireland. White face, deep body, and a temperament that suits a life outdoors. It carries fat where it matters and it takes its time getting there.
The man who rears it.
Mark Williams is the sixth generation of his family to farm at Summerhill. The Williams family have been on that ground long enough to have had a hand in spreading the Hereford breed across Ireland.
He spent more than thirty years choosing beef for other people’s kitchens. In 2018 he stopped sending all of it away and opened a room of his own in Kilkenny, fourteen kilometres from the field.
He still rears the calves, still chooses the cattle, and still picks the cuts himself, one at a time.
Where it goes.
Summerhill beef goes to kitchens that want to know the field it came out of. Mark picks every animal himself.
Butcher The Butterslip, Kilkenny
Talk to us about supply.
Tell us the kitchen, roughly what you go through in a week, and when you would want to start. Mark answers these himself.