Mayo hunter James Ruane’s business is ‘deer’ to his heart
By Tom Gillespie
THE largest exporter of wild Irish venison is based just outside Ballyvary, Co. Mayo.
James and Tina Ruane of J&J Game Dealing, Grallagh, Ballyvary, ship weekly consignments of deer for processing in the UK.
Licensed hunters nationwide supply the company with the animals. And James admitted they can handle any amount of the species be they reds, fallow, sika or hybrids.
James said: “We are looking for deer all the time. We can never get our hands on enough. We can take more and more all the time, thank God.”
As a young lad James was always interested in hunting foxes and rabbits.
He said: “We were out fox hunting one night when we saw deer in a field and I wondered what I would have to do to get a licence to shoot them.
“In 2008 I heard there was a game dealer in Barnacarroll near Knock. I got his number and I approached him and he explained to me how to go about doing it. So I did that and I got the licence and got my gun.
“I went off shooting deer and started selling the deer on a very low scale. I became great friends with the game dealer, Pat White, and he used to bring me on culls around the country.
“Unfortunately he passed away and his son asked if I would be interested in renting their factory. I rented it for three years up until Covid.
“During Covid there was not a lot happening. We were after buying this place here at Grallagh and we said we would try and set up a place ourselves.
“When I was in Barnacarroll we were taking deer on a very small scale. I was working full time and we were not out collecting deer. We were just letting the locals being the deer to us.
“When we set up the family business here in Grallagh we set up a Facebook page and we tried to go countrywide. Now we are collecting deer from Waterford, Galway, Mayo, Tipperary, Limerick, Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal. I go around in the lorry collecting them once a week and then they go to Ben Rigby Game in Maldon in Essex.
“We transport them over and they are processed there and Ben distributes them all over Europe. He is doing big numbers, up to 2,000 week. The number of deer we supply varies depending on the time of year.”
All the hunters James gets the deer from have to be fully licensed, have a gun licence and have done a meat handling course as well as having insurance to be allowed on a farmer’s land.
James continued: “J&J stands for James and Jamie, who is my son. When I was setting up the business he was not long born. I stuck his name down so that some day he will take over the business. He is only seven at the moment. He has a bit to wait and hopefully there are a few more miles left in me yet.
“When we are open it is seven days a week. We don’t have opening or closing times. If somebody has deer and they need to get rid of them, then we are there.
“In a lot of cases people are working full-time so they sneak out in the evening or before they go to work and shoot a couple of deer and then obviously they are not finished work until the evening time so it could be eight, nine, 10 or 11 o’cock when they come to us.”
The Ruanes eat a bit of venison. But James admitted: “To be truthful we don’t eat as much as we used to. We used to be mad for it but when you are working with deer all day long the last thing you want to eat that evening is some venison.
“But we do eat it and it is a beautiful meat. No dosing no injections - you could not get a more healthy animal.”
Ben Rigby, he said, is a brilliant customer and he can take an endless supply of deer.
He added: “He is always looking for more off us. He is a serious contact. Other game dealers have contacted him and he told them they would have to go through me. He is awful loyal to us.”
Department vets come in to the Ruanes and vet all the animals and issue a health certificate to get the animals through customs and into the UK.
James continued: “Initially we put in one fridge, then we put in a second one. In our wildest dreams we hoped we would fill the one fridge and next thing we needed the second one.
“I believe we are doing the biggest numbers of deer in the country. We went from the smallest to the biggest.
“The venison, unfortunately, is not coming back into Ireland as the market for it here is very small even though it is a better meat than beef.
“We can take any amount of deer here and anybody that wants venison afterwards, let it be restaurants, hotels or shops, we can get our hands on it and import it back in.”
J&J Game Dealing are located at Grallagh, Ballyvary, and can be contacted on (087) 3979855.