Hill lamb is perhaps culinary Ireland's best kept secret, a bona fide food treasure, reared in the kind of landscapes that by their nature can't be intensively farmed. Instead the animals roam free-range over extensive areas of mountain until they are brought down to lower land for winter and the lambing season.

Consumers are increasingly attracted to the idea of meat that is carefully reared so that farming barely intrudes on it and equally to the concept of provenance - from Donegal to Wicklow to Kerry, from the Connemara Mountains to the Comeraghs - Hill Lamb has its own unique story.

The physical differences between hill and lowland lamb can be characterised by smaller, lighter and leaner carcasses, and a deeper colour meat.
It is the flavour, bought about by their upland rearing, where the most significant point of difference emerges. Hill lamb graze over a much broader and more varied landscape than the lowland varieties.

Their meat is coloured by the diversity of the flora that they feed on - heathers, hill flowers, herbs and various grasses give the meat a sweet succulent flavour. Meat reared by the sea is characterised by a distinctive flavour that is brought about by the light salt washings that coat the local flora. An additional feature is its late seasonality - hill lamb is available from early autumn to early Spring.