Birch Cottage has a new website of its own
Visit the Birch Cottage website to bookWelcome to Lackan Cottage Farm
We’re Steve and Claire Golemboski-Byrne, we live here off grid with our daughter, our dog, cats and horses. We make all our own energy using wind and solar, grow as much of our own food as we can (it varies widely) and have used permaculture design principles to help us create a great place to live.
Here on the website you’ll find stories about the projects we’ve undertaken – what works, what doesn’t. You can come stay in our guest cottage – Birch Cottage and we will show you round, or maybe you just want to find out how to do some of this stuff. Either way, welcome.
Looking forward to 2026 at Lackan Cottage Farm
Aaaand - we're back. Let's just pretend that the yawning gap between the last post and this one didn't happen. A lot has happened here at Lackan and now that 2026 is upon us, it feels like we are moving into a new phase. Anyone who has followed us for a long time will...
Hedge time
Something we learned the hard way is that it's great to let some things grow wild, but that others really do need managing. In particular, hedges. Our early years here were marked by a pretty militant approach to minimal intervention, which firstly went down badly...
Round(ish) house project update
After two years I've finally succumbed to covid, so am waiting out my quarantine by updating some of the information on the website. First up is the roundhouse - a project that at one point I thought would never end. After a quick start, the thought of having to sieve...
Celebrating our tenth year with new courses
2022 marks our tenth year here at Lackan Cottage Farm, and a lot has changed, both here at the farm and in the wider world. Much of what we've done here seems very relevant in 2022, and many things that were relatively 'fringe' back in 2012 are becoming mainstream...
Tour and talk at Lackan -24th April 2022
This is our tenth year here at Lackan. After two years when we've basically been closed down, and the world has changed in many ways it is time to open up again. We've had lots of requests from people to come and look around and ask questions, and this is a great way...
Finishing the roundhouse
Five years ago now we started building the strawbale roundhouse, which has been a slow affair, mainly due to not having any good clay with which to make earth plaster. The roundhouse has sat there full of junk - a wasted opportunity that has nagged at me each time I...