Milk has always been part of our culture, but we lost our way, according to Noel Barcoe of The Village Dairy. “Forty years ago, milk had real flavour, and it had unique flavours depending on where it came from. It all depended on the soil, the grass and the weather. Milk from Cork tasted very different to Donegal milk. But somehow, we lost the flavour”.   Noel started off life as a milkman, with a round delivering milk, cheese, yoghurts and other produce. He and a group of other milkmen formed a buying group with a premises in Killeshin on the Carlow Laois border. “After the Celtic tiger, we needed to reinvent ourselves. I have always listened to customers, and they seemed very interested in where their milk came from and how it was made. We had all these artisanal cheese and butter companies but I saw nobody was doing milk.”