[Sneachta]

I was talking to my sister last week about how good the fruit crop was this year in Dublin when she said she had none at all and how disappointed she was.
She's in Sligo county in the countryside. Its quite windy there but still, i was surprised. She says she almost never gets any apples.

So, in a long winded way I'm getting to my question. I'm looking for a cooker and maybe two or three eaters in my garden and was thinking I might get a couple for her to try. I'd like to get something Irish and tasty and for her part of the country one that can take a more harsh climate than we get here on the east coast.

Could her lack of success be due to lack of bees or at least flowers that attract them? The countryside around her is quite hilly and deforested.

Does anyone have any recommendations? Thanks.
For the cooker for myself I was just going to go with a Bramley but am open to suggestions.

[Sive]

Like so many people we've had a bumper crop...in our case, from our heritage apple trees that we got from Seedsavers 4 years ago.
We have two cookers: Bloody Butcher and Uncle John's Cooker. Both gave us wonderful large colourful fruits.......Uncle John's Cooker had a particularly heavy crop and the largest of the apples weighed 300 gms each !
Now I have to explain that this is the first year that the trees have cropped well; our garden is on a hill and gets a lot of wind and I really don't know how often we will have such crops, but we can hope.
We also have eating apples and I particularly liked the apples from Scarlet Crofton. Kerry Pippin gave us lots of tasty fruit...on the small side.
I think Irish Peach is another good one.....I need to be more scientific in noting what apples we're eating when we started collecting windfalls !
I hope this has been of some help. Irish Seedsavers will, I'm sure advise you...maybe they have a Sligo variety in their collection. But you need to reserve your trees very soon before they are all sold out.
http://www.irishseedsavers.ie/index.php

[Good guy]

One thing to be careful about is ensuring that your trees have appropriate pollinators. It seems apples can be quite choosey about who they share genes with! Apple trees are divided into pollination groups and need to be pollinated by another plant in either the same or a contiguous group.
Fruit and Nut in Westport have a comprehensive collection.

[Qzy]

I live in North Roscommon so not that far away from Sligo.
Irish Peach is the earliest for me but the tree is a tip bearer and quite sparse. I had far more fruit on it last year. Discovery was good last year but not so good this year. Worcester Pearmain was very good this year, but my Scaret Crofton and Kerry Pippin poor. I have a Katy Tree that is growning much too well and has never set flowers in 4 years! Annie Elizabeth (a cooker) was good this year but the Crows had a field day. I have 3 Lidl Trees I put in years ago and they fruit well each year - just not the varities on the labels! As an aside, I had way more scab on the trees this year also which surprised me a little.

So, no real help, sorry

[Sneachta]

Thanks for the suggestions I had heard of irish Peach and Worcester Pearmain so thats good to get some real feedback on those varieties. Think those two will be on the list!