Veronica Steele

Veronica Barron Steele (26 November 1947 – 4 January 2017) was an Irish artisan cheesemaker from Eyeries, West Cork. She created Milleens cheese, "Ireland's first modern farmhouse cheese".^[1]

Veronica Steele
Born	Veronica Barron (1947-11-26)26 November 1947 Dublin
Died	4 January 2017(2017-01-04) (aged 69) County Cork
Occupation(s)	Cheesemaker; businesswoman

Career

Steele earned a degree in philosophy from University College Dublin.^[2] She pioneered the homegrown Irish artisan cheese industry in the 1970s, with the introduction of Milleens cheese,^[3][4] which achieved national attention when it was picked up by Declan Ryan for use in the Arbutus Lodge in Cork.^[5] She started cheese making on her Beara Peninsula farm, as a way to preserve excess milk,^[3][6] and to develop jobs in rural areas.^[7] She was influenced by John Ehle.^[8] "Any fool can make cheese," she later explained. "It takes genius to ripen it. You are dealing with an innocent-looking blob of mainly protein and fat, which is the favourite food of almost every beast that roams the face of the earth."^[4]

The Steeles were featured in a short documentary film, The Cheesemakers of Beara, televised in 1986.^[9] Steele was a founder and chair of CAÍS, the Association of Irish Farmhouse Cheesemakers.^[10][11] In 2000 she and Seamus Sheridan gave a workshop on Irish Farmhouse Cheese at the Salon de Gusto in Turin.^[12] The Steeles' herd was lost to bovine spongiform encephalopathy in 2001. She retired for health reasons in 2003, passing ownership of the Milleens production to her son Quinlan.^[13][14]

In 2016, she was honoured with a "Best of the Decade" Good Food Ireland Award.^[5] She also received the first Lifetime Achievement Award at the Irish Cheese Awards.^[15]

Personal life

Veronica Barron, a Dublin native, was married to Sussex-born philosophy lecturer Norman Steele.^[16][17] They had four children.^[2] She suffered from multiple system atrophy later in life, and died in 2017, at the age of 69, at Bantry General Hospital.^[5][16]