Meath's Business Ambassador 2018: Owen Brennan interviewed

Four decades ago, when a young Carlow man was studying agriculture at the Salesian College in Warrenstown, he could hardly have foreseen that he would eventually make his way back to the Royal County, heading up an international company that would purchase the largest landholding in the Boyne Valley’s UNESCO World Heritage site.
But that is the journey that has brought Owen Brennan from the village of Leighlinbridge on the side of the river Barrow to the banks of the Boyne, where his company Devenish Nutrition is setting up a global innovation centre at 430-acre Dowth Hall and the neighbouring Netterville Institute.  
And while the international company is using the soils of the Meath lands for animal nutrition research purposes, Brennan and his wife, Dr Alice Stanton, have also had a lifelong interest in the archaeology and heritage of the area, and were hugely excited by the discovery of Neolithic art on the Dowth estate this year. 
They have just acquired the Netterville Institution, which was once part of the Dowth estate until Viscount Netterville, who lived at Dowth, bequeathed 60 acres for the building of an alms house for widows and orphans in 1877, to a design by architect George Coppinger Ashlin. Also a school, the father of John Boyle O'Reilly, the poet and patriot, taught there.
“It’s an old Victorian institute,” Owen Brennan explains. “The site includes an old Norman tower – we understand a tower has stood on it since the 14th century. There are also the ruins of a medieval sixth century church, and associated graveyard.”
He explains that his plans for the building, most recently in use as a wedding venue and family home, are to establish it as the headquarters for Devenish’s global innovation centre, while Dowth Hall itself will eventually become their family home. (They currently live in Beauparc).
“It is a nice progression,” Brennan says. “We have been using Dowth for a lot of innovation work for the last five years, and since we took it one, it has proven really successful.”
The Devenish strategy, 'One Health, From Soil to Society', focuses on the importance of optimising nutrient utilisation in soil, plant, animal, environmental and human health, as key and interlinked components of the value chain.
“We have been using Dowth for a lot of innovation work for the last five years, and since we took it one, it has proven really successful.
“Our work is all about health in one shape or form,” he says. “A big purpose at Dowth is to work on healthy soils. Soils are enormously biologically active environments, which has been underappreciated in the last century.
“We seek to join 21st century technology to the best of soil management and soil husbandry, with modern challenges and requirements in mind, and in particular sustainable farming and food production systems.”
He points out that soil loss is an international problem, and it is a very slowly renewable natural resource. 
“We are lucky in Dowth to be surrounded on three sides by the rover Boyne, and the interaction between soil and water is a big focus for us, regarding water quality. Getting a large grassland farm in such a location was ideal.
From a merchant and farming family, Brennan’s journey from Warrenstown brought him to University College Dublin to study agriculture, from where he qualified in 1982. Fifteen years later, he and two colleagues bought into Belfast firm, Brooks a family feed business set up in 1952 as an agri-tech company when the economy was struggling after World War II.
It became Devenish Nutrition after the Fermanagh island of Devenish in Lough Erne, location of an ancient monastic house, with a vision “to be world renowned for our creativity and integrity in the field of agri-technology and for our value adding products and services.”
The Brennans settled in Kilbride, Clonee, some 20 years ago, where their neighbours included the famous footballing Quinns, and then moved to Beauparc 15 years ago.
“County Meath has been a very happy place for me and my family,” he says. “We have moved around a lot, and where you live is important in life – where your family go to school, make friends, play sport.
“We were very interested and positive about Meath before we ever arrived here, and our experience over the last 20 years has simply reinforced that impression.”
Part of that positive experience has been the discovery, earlier this year, of a 5,500 year old passage tomb cemetery at Dowth Hall.
The previously unknown tomb cemetery comprises burial chambers and evidence of a large enclosing kerb of stones and of a cairn that once covered the tombs. The structural remains are estimated to date to around 3,300 BC. A number of stones bearing characteristic megalithic art, similar to the stones at Newgrange and Knowth, were also discovered.
“One of the main motivations for buying the property was that we have a lifelong interest in that site long before it was a World Heritage Site ,” Brennan says.  “By coincidence, Alice had done an extensive project on Irish art while a student, in which the Boyne Valley featured prominently.”
While Brennan says he is not an archaeologist, because of his food and farming background, he is aware that the people who built those monuments were Ireland’s first farmers.
“And we like that connection as a farming and food company.”
He points that 30 to 40 per cent of Neolithic art in Europe is in the Boyne Valley, which is quite a striking thing to have that much in one small part of one small island.
The Brennans and Devenish have also been involved in supporting various sports over the years, and are currently two years into a three-year sponsorship deal with Meath GAA, having started off with Seneschalstown football club. They are also involved in Old Leighlin and Carlow Ladies GAA, where Owen’s nieces play, and underage Irish cricket teams, where more nephews and nieces play – Alice is a former cricket player. Others they have supported over the years included boxer, Darren O’Neill, and another niece, athlete Mary Anne O’Sullivan.
“Really, we are attracted to anything where there is a big local volunteer effort, combined with a huge commitment from the participants. It’s not always easy for them, so we bridge the gap when we can.”
And the Brennans have welcomed thousands to Dowth Hall over the past four years for the annual Dowth Point-to-Point and Country Fair, in conjunction with the Meath Hunt and Tara Harriers, where the best of food and racing has been experienced in the heart of Brú na Bóinne.