Innovative butcher is Wilde about Oscar!

Northern Ireland's award winning butcher Pat O'Doherty has created two pork-based pies to mark the achievements of playwright, poet and renowned Oscar Wilde.

The O'Doherty individual pies are a pork with truffles and mushrooms and pork pie with a herb pastry base and were developed to coincide with the new Oscar Wilde Festival in Enniskillen in county Fermanagh, where O'Doherty's Fine Meats is based.

Oscar Wilde studied at Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, one of Northern Ireland's historic grammar schools, Wilde, a Dublin, studied there in the Victorian era, from 1864-1871, before going up to Oxford University.

Pioneer of the award winning Fermanagh Black Bacon, O'Doherty developed the pies to coincide with the first Oscar Wilde Festival in Enniskillen. He's also the entrepreneur behind Ireland's only Black Pudding Festival, which he launched in September 2013 as an event to support the area's burgeoning tourism industry. The third Black Pudding Festival will be held again by O'Doherty this September.

"The pig has long been the most important animal in rural communities like Fermanagh and it made sense to create new pork pie flavours to give visitors to Enniskillen an opportunity to enjoy pies with a difference as part of the tourism experience. Pigs were the mainstay of family farms for generations throughout Fermanagh," O'Doherty says.

"Oscar Wilde would certainly have enjoyed pork in pies and other dishes during his seven years at Portora Royal School. The pies can be eaten hot or cold and provide a tasty treat for visitors to Enniskillen," he adds.

The launch of the new pies is a further sign of the convergence underway in Northern Ireland between tourism and local food especially artisan products likes O'Doherty's famed dry-cure Black Bacon and Fermanagh Corned Beef. The Back Pudding Festival is a further example of O'Doherty's focus on creating food events that appeal to visitors as well as locals.

O'Doherty's Fine Meats is a family-run business that's been providing a broad range of meats in Enniskillen since the 1940s. The business has won a series of national awards for a range of products including burgers and sausages. Pat O'Doherty has also been UK Butcher of the Year.

Ingredients for his meats are sourced locally including from his own herd of Tamworth pigs which are outside bred on a remote island in picturesque Lough Erne, near his Enniskillen butchery and deli business.