Killarney Urban Farm is an Irish in-house hospitality hydroponic urban farm. It grows salad leaves and herbs in vertical towers for supply to their own hotels and restaurants in the O’Donoghue Ring Collection, which includes Killarney’s Plaza Hotel, Towers Hotel, Avenue Hotel, and River Island Hotel.
“We had looked at growing our own produce - the team were always very enthusiastic - but because all the properties are in the town center, we could only grow herbs,” says managing director Gemma Ring.
After her husband, Paul O’Neill encountered a vertical garden tower in the co-working space, Republic of Work, Ring discovered Jenny Twomey and Jill O’Brien’s Cork-based Green Towers Ireland and worked with them to develop a system for the Collection in Killarney.
“We met Jenny and Jill, did a tour of the Cork Rooftop Farm [which also uses this system], saw the towers there, and got to taste what they grow. The flavor was amazing, very intense. We took some salad leaves home, and they lasted really well in the fridge.”
Ring and her team looked at hotel rooftop spaces initially: “we already have beehives on the rooftop of the Killarney Plaza Hotel & Spa.”
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