Murphy's Ice Cream | The Sweet Taste of Dingle
Murphy’s Ice Cream is a delight you should never pass up. Two brothers had the dream of making the best Ice Cream in the world, and they’ve spent the past 25 years turning that dream into very sweet success.
Murphy’s Ice Cream in Dingle
All of their shops are the same bright blue with a welcoming atmosphere. Their flavours include fresh strawberry, Dingle Sea Salt, Kieran’s Cookies and Irish Brown Bread, but there are the common flavours there as well. And all are delicious! The two brothers, Sean and Kieran, were raised in New York, but decided to relocate to Ireland in the 1990s. They arrived to lots of family and lots of ideas to work with. They decided on making the very best ice cream in the world. After all they knew they could work with the best ingredients with Ireland’s milk and cream. So they cashed in on the milk and cream of the Kerry cows nearby and used a blend of creative ideas and common sense to come up with flavours. Plus they use lessons from life, to keep ingredients, employees and customers in harmony at all times.
Sea salt collected in Dingle, filtered, boiled and used in Sea Salt Ice Cream.
As for the flavours they strive for tastes from their childhoods, but they always insist on fresh ingredients. So summers bring them Wexford strawberries and other fresh fruits grown locally. But year-round they dream up flavours and one of their big focusses is local, local, local.
“You can get most of what we need locally,” Sean says. “And a lot of this is using our imaginations.”
While Sean runs the business end of things his brother, Kieran is always on the lookout for flavours. Sea Salt came from his love of that summertime feeling of swimming in the sea, and that last bit of salt on your lips when you come out of the water. Irish brown bread was a natural, but they had to get the recipe just right for ice cream. The same with cookies. The old recipes don’t always work in ice cream.
And one of the most important ingredients in Murpohy’s Ice Cream is always balance.
“I used to be in music,” Sean tells me. “And with music, harmony is key. If not everyone’s going in a different direction. So with this business I do the same thing. I keep what customers want in balance with what we offer. And I make sure employees actually want to work here. It just another balance.”
They sell a half million scoops a year and each serving comes with a smile. Hear Sean Murphy tell his own story in this episode of Erin’s Isle.