Donegal Town is exceptionally well catered for in the meat department with several excellent butchers, including EWS Traditional Butchers (Eddie Walsh & Sons,) all within a few yards of each other. Astonishingly good fortune for the shoppers of Donegal, when so many Irish and villages have no independent butcher at all.
It was the quality of their breakfast meats - enjoyed in a local hotel and credited on the menu - that first led us to Eddie Walsh & Sons, where we discovered that these third generation butchers' sausages have regularly taken gold in in the National Sausage Championships for over a decade (since 2003 in fact). So it was no surprise to find that their other products are also outstanding - and, also, that EWS championships are not restricted to their sausages.
In fact their main speciality is Aubrac beef, a breed known for the flavour and tenderness of its well marbled meat. It is produced on the family farm near Ballintra and, as members of Irish Aubrac Cattle Breed Society, they take great pride in their prize winning breeding stock.
It's an outstanding all-round butchers shop too, where customer service has come first since the original Ballintra shop (which is still going strong) opened in 1962, and this is reflected in achievements that include winning the coveted ACBI (Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland) title of All Ireland Craft Butcher of the Year in 2014.
