ABOUT SALLY BARNES
One of Ireland’s culinary legends
Sally Ferns-Barnes is one of the key figures in Ireland's food renaissance of the last forty-plus years. Alongside other pioneer women in the Irish food community like Myrtle Allen, Veronica Steele, Jeffa Gill, Iris Diebrok, Giana Ferguson, Madeline McKeever, Sally McKenna, Darina Allen, and Danette Milne, Sally has ensured that Ireland's indigenous food culture is celebrated and experienced by locals, visitors, and international tourists.
With a background in education and a huge respect and love for the natural world, Sally regularly travels around the world to participate in conferences and events, educating people about wild fish and what is happening in our oceans today. She also does pop-up masterclasses and courses at universities, festivals, and fairs, such as Ballymaloe, Lanzarote, James Beard Foundation and Chelsea Market in New York, Slow Food International, and a range of private events.
A member of Slow Fish, Sally takes on interns every year from the Slow Food University to teach them artisan fish-smoking skills. Sally regularly travels worldwide to participate in discussions on the environmental impact of plastic pollution, climate change, and overfishing on our waters.
A self-taught smoker, Sally founded Woodcock Smokery in West Cork in 1981, working exclusively with the best wild fish from Ireland's waters. Facing challenges with the supply of wild salmon, she has diversified over the years, consistently winning awards for her sustainably sourced albacore tuna, haddock, pollack, and mackerel. In 2020, Sally launched the Keep, a place where she can teach masterclasses in fish curing and smoking to pass on her knowledge to as many people as she can. Somehow, in between all this, she raised two beautiful daughters who are the lights of her life.
A lifetime against the tide
Trailer for a new documentary on Sally Barnes - due for release in 2025.
Produced by Be.Polar Studio
Sally began traditional smoke-curing as a means to preserve the bounty that she and her husband at the time were catching from the Atlantic waters of the West Cork coastline. Working as a fisherwoman and commercial fisherman’s wife, she smoked her first fish in 1979 and, through endless trial and error, supplying the local community with preserved fish, established a famously unique recipe that began winning awards and accolades.
Awards include the prestigious Supreme Champion at the Great Taste Awards (in 2006) for her now legendary cold-smoked Wild Atlantic Salmon, and most recently the Euro-Toques Ireland Craft Award (in 2018) and the Lifetime Achievement Award (in 2022) from the Irish Food Writers’ Guild.
Sally has appeared in many publications, books, and television programmes - New York Times, Financial Times, The Irish Times, Irish Country Living, BBC Travel, Richard Corrigan’s “Corrigan Knows Food” TV Series, Neven Maguire TV series, Donal Skehan’s TV series, Nationwide, and Dan Saladino's world-famous book “Eating to Extinction.”