My Country Living: merging technology and practice

Labasheeda in Co Clare, that’s where I’m from. It means “bed of silk” in Irish. We’ve sucklers here at home and then we rear a few bucket-fed dairy calves as well.

My father is farming here for the last 30 or 40 years. He’s always had a few sucklers. We might have had one or two calves before, bucket-rearing them. But then the last few years we increased those numbers and also kept up the suckling numbers as well.

Our land is grand summer land, but it can be heavy enough at the start and end of the year. A brother of mine bought a farm a couple of years ago in Labasheeda too and that’s good, dry land. You can see the difference getting cattle out earlier and getting them out for longer as well.

I’m the youngest of three boys. Myself and the oldest lad would be the most interested in the farming. My middle brother wouldn’t have as much interest but, still, he’d keep in touch with what’s going on. I’m farming with the father and the brother has his own farm as well. We all have jobs off-farm.

The father, he’s a plumber, so he was always part-time. We’d be out on the farm with him in the evenings and the weekends all the way up.

At the weekend you’d have your Saturdays lined up to do different jobs because everyone is around. You would much rather be out doing something on the farm than going for your pot of coffee in town.

We wouldn’t have massive numbers, so it would be nearly all spring calving. ‘Tis all AI we do, it’s no bother. In fairness to the father, he had the place all laid out in paddocks, so it was easy to get the cow in. Having a reel of wire and a few stakes, it’s as good as five people standing in gaps.

We got a bull one year, but he was a pure disaster getting cows in calf. He put our calving spread all over the place, so we went back to the AI then again.

College days

I studied music, media and performance technology (MMPT) in UL from 2012 to 2016. The thing is, I never played a musical instrument in my life. There isn’t one note in the head, but I suppose when I took on that course I thought I’d be the next Marty Morrissey or something. The course was a small bit artsy for me, but we did a nice bit on technology.

We’d be learning about different pieces of technology, but it would be more for performances and stages. Coming from the farming background I was thinking, “Jesus you could use this or that for a cow?”

With technology getting more accessible to farmers and farmers taking to it a bit more around that time, I was thinking, “Maybe there’s an angle here I can use from my course to get into the industry I want to be in?” It was second or third year when I got into that frame of mind.

For your final-year project (FYP), you can do whatever you want. So I said I’d do something hopefully I’d get a job in. I made my own farm management app. Low and behold, I got on well enough in my FYP and the September after graduating I got a job with Herdwatch. It does farm management software, so the plan worked out pretty well.

I went on the Herdwatch website and just sent an email saying I was a recent graduate looking to get into the area. Fabian, the boss man, sent me an email back saying, “We’re interested. I’ll give you a call.”

At this stage it was only about a week before the Ploughing. The call went well and he was saying: “It’s a pity we couldn’t have you in for the Ploughing.” I said: “I’ve no commitments next week.” I went down working with them for the three days. The Thursday in the Richie Kavanagh tent he was wondering would I start the following Monday. I’ve been there since.

Keeping busy

Herdwatch is based in Roscrea, but with the pandemic I’ve been working from home in Clare. One aspect of farming is whatever the time of year, there’s always something coming.

When we came back in March you had the cows calving. Then it crept into the breeding season. During the summer, football started back again and you had silage to be at. Now even this year the football is over, we’re actually doing a shed here at the moment through TAMS. That’s keeping me busy.

I do think farming is attractive to young people for the lifestyle aspects of it. We were always part-time farming, so we had an off-farm income. You’re not under pressure to make your living off it, so that makes it more enjoyable.

The way we’ve grown up, we’d be much happier out doing something than sitting back and doing nothing. Now, you’re not making massive money, but you’re making money. There’s a lot of naysayers out there at times. Maybe they might be under more pressure to make more money off of it because that’s their main source of income.

A lot of my friends around here are from farming backgrounds and they’re all mad into it as well. This year, with COVID-19 and more people around, there was never as much work done. People really saw the benefits of farming during the lockdowns. We’re able to continue our days here much like normal. You can still go out in the fields. There’s still stuff to be done.

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