Our story
One kiln behind the harbour wall.
In 1923 a man built a kiln on Harbour Road and started smoking fish over oak. A hundred years and four generations later, the kiln is still standing, the recipe has not changed, and the family is still here.
Photograph: the original 1923 kiln, behind the harbour wallBeginnings in 1923
Ardglass is a fishing harbour, and in 1923 the boats came in with more fish than the town could eat fresh. The great-grandfather of the family built one kiln behind the harbour wall on Harbour Road, and began curing and smoking fish over oak so it would keep, travel and taste better.
There was nothing fancy about it. A kiln, a cure, oak, time, and the fish coming in a few yards away. The recipe he settled on is the one we still use. It has been passed down by hand, not written up and filed.
We do not know everything about those first years. There may be old photographs or ledgers in the office, and we will add anything we find to this page.
The original kiln
The first kiln is still there. It has been mended and looked after for a century, and it still smokes fish. When people visit, that is what they want to see, and it is what we are proudest of.
Smoking the way we do takes days, not hours. The fish is cured first, then hung in the oak smoke and left. Paddy, our head smoker, has done this for forty years and judges each batch by eye and by nose. You cannot hurry it, and we have never tried.
Four generations
The same family, a hundred years on.
The business has passed from parent to child four times. The trade customers have stayed with us through all of it, some for decades.
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1923: the first kiln
The great-grandfather builds one kiln behind the harbour wall and starts smoking fish over oak to the recipe we still use.
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The kiln kept lit
The next generation keeps the smokehouse going through hard years and good ones, supplying the town and the trade.
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Declan
Declan runs the business today. He looks after the trade customers in Belfast, Glasgow and beyond, and has answered the same phone line for forty years.
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To your door
The fourth generation is taking the smokehouse online, so people from Ardglass who have moved away, and anyone else, can have it sent chilled to their home.
From the archive
What we have found so far.
We are going through the office for old photographs and papers. This page will grow as we find them.
Archive photograph: Declan at the smokehouse, about 1998
Photograph: Paddy hanging sides in the oak smokeHow we smoke today
The method has not changed. Cure the fish, hang it in oak smoke, give it days. What has changed is the paperwork around it. We are SALSA certified, which is the food safety standard the trade asks for, and we keep it up to date.
We are plain about where the fish comes from. Our salmon is farmed, mostly in Scotland, and we buy from suppliers we have trusted for years rather than the cheapest boat. Mackerel and eel are landed locally, off Ardglass. Trout comes from a farm inland, not far from here.
Paddy's own words on the smoke and the cure will go here.
Paddy, head smoker
Trade customers still ring Declan on 028 4484 1223, as they always have. And now, for the first time, anyone can order from the smokehouse and have it sent chilled to the door.
The taste of home
Order from the smokehouse.
Sliced salmon, whole sides and gift boxes, oak smoked behind the harbour wall and sent chilled across the UK and Ireland, or collected from Harbour Road.