The fire started early last Wednesday morning. “We don’t really know what happened. We were woken up at 4.30am by the gardaí,” said Wendy Bailey, the wife of one of the farmers operating Cloughjordan Community Farm.

The farm is owned by 70 members who hire the two farmers and receive produce including vegetables. It uses biodynamic methods such as working with horses.

“The horses, thank God, weren’t in the stables as they normally would be,” said Wendy. Nobody was injured in the incident. “The barn is flattened,” she told the Irish Farmers Journal. Stables for four horses as well as a winnower and other specialist horse-drawn machinery were destroyed. “Some metal equipment was twisted beyond use,” said Wendy. The farm’s tractor was thankfully parked away from the barn.

The building also contained 500 bales of hay – “our best year ever” – and the farm’s latest crop of potatoes.

Forensics

Wendy said gardaí had sent forensics and were investigating a potential link to another shed fire across the road from the farm four days earlier. The barn had no electricity and the hay was “bone dry”, she added. The CCTV camera 15ft away “melted away” and images could not be recovered.

The farm’s members had built the shed themselves and it was not insured against fire because it was made of wood.

Jane and Tom Baker from the UK, who were attending a course at the Cloughjordan Ecovillage adjacent to the farm last week, have set up a crowdfunding page to raise €4,000 in immediate help to deal with the aftermath of the fire.

Wendy said this would provide for a temporary solution such as a polytunnel. “Some local farmers have been very generous and given us hay,” she added.

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Hay shed goes on fire in Co Offaly