{"id":643010,"date":"2026-10-02T21:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T21:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/643010\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T21:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T21:20:11","slug":"farmers-protest-outside-larry-murrin-linked-restaurant-after-row-sparked-by-irish-times-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/643010\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmers protest outside Larry Murrin-linked restaurant after row sparked by Irish Times review"},"content":{"rendered":"

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LAST UPDATE
\n |
\n 4 hrs ago\n <\/p>\n

A GROUP OF farmers is currently protesting outside the Dublin restaurant part-owned by the chairman of Bord Bia, Larry Murrin.<\/p>\n

SOLE Seafood and Grill on Drury Street, a busy area in the city centre, has received a protest made up of around 40 farmers (according to the Irish Farmers\u2019 Association) after the Irish Times published a food review on the restaurant\u2019s offerings.<\/p>\n

Headlined \u2018I\u2019m in shock \u2013 \u20ac35 for chicken supreme using non-free-range Dutch chicken\u2019<\/a>, the review included a number of claims about the origin of some of the fish and other meat as being from outside Ireland.<\/p>\n

The restaurant\u2019s website<\/a> said its philosophy \u201chonours seafood sustainability and local Irish producers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Larry Murrin is already an unpopular figure among many farmers after revelations earlier this year that he had been importing some Brazilian beef for his company Dawn Farms.<\/p>\n

Murrin told an Oireachtas committee earlier this year that\u00a0his company sourced \u201cless than 1%\u201d of its beef from Brazil last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following the controversy, the IFA staged lengthy protests at Bord Bia offices<\/a> at the start of the year as it repeatedly called for Murrin to either step aside from his role or be removed as chair.<\/p>\n

\"river-1\"
\n Larry Murrin speaking at an Oireachtas committee in February after the Brazilian beef revelations. Oireachtas TV<\/p>\n

Oireachtas TV\n<\/p>\n

The IFA\u2019s poultry chair Brendan Soden told The Journal that the organisation is still calling for Murrin to step down.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter being revealed now in the last week over that food review, I think [it’s] pure hypocrisy now at the minute that he\u2019s a part owner rather in a restaurant that claims on the website to support Irish produce and Irish producers, and almost nothing in the restaurant was Irish, apart from maybe one or two things,\u201d Soden said.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the restaurant said it sources as much of its product from within Ireland as possible, but that \u201cit has not been possible\u201d to source a consistent and timely supply of chicken breast product.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have purchased our high-quality chicken breast product from an EU based supplier to a highly reputable Irish-owned distributor,\u201d the restaurant said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch of our other products, for example beef, lobster, oysters, mussels\u2026 are sourced within Ireland. Where products are not available locally, our sourcing model is traceable, ethical and environmentally robust, balancing Irish provenance with certified global sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soden said of the restaurant: \u201cAnybody\u2019s entitled to run their own private business the way they see fit. But not when he\u2019s in the position he\u2019s in, of representing Irish food. That\u2019s the main cut of it. He\u2019s holding that position. He should be supporting farmers, and he should be supporting Irish produce.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IFA poultry chair said it\u2019s very frustrating for Irish farmers who are part of quality assurance schemes and who are told the Bord Bia stamp helps market their produce.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we have the chair of the organisation that we\u2019re all members of doing whatever he likes and selling whatever he likes, and not giving any producers or any Irish produce any support, especially in these high-end restaurants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dawn Farm Foods has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAST UPDATE | 4 hrs ago A GROUP OF farmers is currently protesting outside the Dublin restaurant part-owned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3810,127972,273018,72,615,273019,61,3928,60,12468,129761],"class_list":["post-643010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-agriculture","tag-bord-bia","tag-bord-bia-chair","tag-business","tag-dublin","tag-home-to-roost","tag-ie","tag-ifa","tag-ireland","tag-irish-farmers-association","tag-larry-murrin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}