Over the course of the next few hours tears are shed as the six farm women talk about farming and the struggles and triumphs they’ve had. What’s extraordinary is how many faced the death of a parent at a young age and how it was women who kept the farms going.

Farming bug

When Karen Smyth finished secondary school in Borrisokane, she found herself at a loose end. She tried teaching children to ride but that didn’t last. It was suggested she try Gurteen Agricultural College, and even though she had no farming background she loved the course. “It was great craic. I was kept on for the summer and spent it on a tractor drawing in silage.”

Readers will be familiar with Karen’s dad, Tom Williams of the Majorca Showband and the Slick Six, which is going strong today.

Karen met Joe, her husband in a pub in Cloughjordan. “He was a fine hurler and played for Moneygall so being a good Kilruane MacDonaghs woman, I used to dread him.” Joe was the eldest of three boys and was only eight when his dad, Paddy, was killed in a farm accident. “It happened on 10 December 1983. Paddy had gone out to roll barley.”

At the time of Paddy’s fatal accident the family were milking about 50 cows in Dunkerrin and that number increased to 70 when Karen and Joe married in 2006. Today they milk 140 cows.

Long-distance move

Rose Connolly was reared on a busy sheep farm in Graiguenamanagh. Her mother was a nurse who gave up her job to rear her family of seven and help on the farm. Rose wanted to be an accountant, but with two brothers already at college, when it came to her turn she did a receptionist course and worked in the Ormond Hotel, Dublin.

“I was there during the Post Office strike and I will never forget a Garda arriving in home to tell me I’d got the bank. Suddenly my wages went from £20 to £120 a week.”

She completed banking exams and one night as she was heading to a night class she heard music coming from the Templemore Arms and went to investigate. That’s when she met her husband Tom.

While they were dating, Rose was offered a position in a new bank branch in Castlerea and that didn’t suit at all. “We had to get engaged and produce a receipt for a deposit for the reception in the Spring Hill Hotel. It didn’t work and I got sent to Roscommon. My husband-to-be, needed to farm and I couldn’t afford to give up work. I had to stay in Roscommon for a year before being transferred to Borrisokane where I remained for the next six years. By then we had three children under three and one more was to come.”

Rose and Tom were milking 60 cows on the family farm in Loughmore but they were badly caught by the quota and it’s only in the last few years they have scaled up to 130 cows. “We are now at maximum cow levels for the milking platform we have. We’ve invested in a zero grazer and it’s the best thing that’s come into the yard. We can bring grass home from a couple of miles away.”

They are also happy that their youngest, Eamonn is now in partnership with them.

Just me and mam

Rosarie Maher has farmed all her life. Her dad Pat Joe Ryan died when she was 14 so it was just her mam, Mary and herself. In the early days Rosarie helped milk 20 cows by hand before school. They reared calves to beef and kept sheep. “When I was growing up money was scarce and every penny was minded. Mam wouldn’t buy anything unless she could pay for it. We had no choice but to keep going. We did it with the support of a great uncle and neighbours and our dear friend Mary who became part of the family.”

As a teenager, favourite haunts were the Las Vegas ballroom in Templemore and the Premier in Thurles. However, it was a neighbour Rosarie had grown up with that she married. Tom Maher had the farm next door and was in dairy, beef and sheep. When they married in 1971 it was easy to merge the two places.

Here again the imposition of quotas impeded expansion. They started with 20 cows and now have 60 which suits their milking platform

Over the years Rosarie looked after Tom’s parents, his uncle and her mother. They have two daughters, Siobhan who lives locally and Patricia who is farming at home. “It’s good to see the next generation carry it on.”

Making ice cream

Kate Cantwell comes from Toomevara and grew up on a mixed farm of dairy, beef and sheep. “My mam’s name was Nellie Moriarty and she was a brilliant dressmaker. You could come to her with a roll of material in the morning and have a suit by the end of the day.”

Kate qualified as an accountant and worked in various businesses before returning to college for a teaching diploma. She’s been teaching business and IT at Nenagh College since 2004 and now job shares.

Growing up Kate helped out at home and continued this when she married Mike and moved to Roscrea. They wanted to add value to the milk produced on the family farm. They began making ice cream as a franchisee but found it left little return and so they established the Boulabán ice cream brand on the family farm.

“There’s been tough days but we are part of the Tipperary Food Producers group and our ice cream is distributed to high-end restaurants and hotels by La Rousse Foods.”

Too young

Margaret Bourke was just two months shy of her third birthday when her father died. She describes him as a workaholic and gifted with his hands. The talk at the time was that her mother would have to sell out.

“Mam didn’t drive. I remember her bringing me to 7am Mass on the front of her bike every Sunday. Then the most extraordinary thing happened. Frankie came into our lives. He was from the Artane Boy’s home and was working for a farmer. When he heard of our plight, he cycled into our yard and worked with us until he died many years later. He is buried in our family plot.”

Margaret married Neddie Bourke in 1983 and he was also a farmer. They ran a dairy and beef operation on two farms. “We were never off the road and it was 25 miles over and back so we quit dairying. Then nine years ago our lives changed utterly when Neddie had a bad fall from a ladder. He was using a chainsaw and suffered a lot of injuries. He now walks with the help of crutches. Today we have sheep and drystock and some of the land is leased.”

Focus 97

Twenty two years ago Catherine Mullally established the Focus 97 women’s monthly discussion group and with 60 members it’s been a great support to women farmers in this part of Tipperary. Catherine hails from a farming background in Borris-in-Ossary.

“After school I did a maths and geography degree and went teaching and I loved it.” Catherine met John, her future husband at a dance in the Templemore Arms. “He asked me for a waltz and he was a good dancer and we were married seven years later.”

While the home place was always a dairy farm, quotas held back expansion but they still doubled cow numbers to 100. She stayed teaching until the second of their four children was born. Then with four under five and yard work to be done there was no going back to teaching. “The only time I regret it is at the end of the calving season.”

Farming today

Looking at farming today, Rose believes the life work balance on farms has changed for the better. But it’s a priority when children are young. “This will encourage kids to farm. Seeing drudgery and endless hours won’t.”

All agree there are fewer farm wives working at home with most either holding on to careers or returning to them. “But you can lose your identity when marrying in. You become an extension of the farm and the extended family and that can take time to accept,” says Catherine.

The issue of inheritance got everyone talking. “Farmers can’t pay the child who stays at home the same money their siblings earn. By the time they get the farm, they’ve earned the price of it and more”. Then there’s the expectation they are responsible for the care of elderly relatives. People need to plan for their future was the general view.

Again there was agreement that girls inheriting was becoming more acceptable to farmers. “If they are interested give the girls a chance.” However, inheritance is a minefield with so many taxes to be negotiated.

Expansion

While there isn’t much dairying north of Nenagh, all noted expansion in the Roscrea, Templemore and Thurles areas. However, we are not talking massive expansion, more like 15-20%.

Catherine isn’t happy that dairy beef is being partly blamed for the beef crises. “We all have to work together and it’s not too long ago since dairy farmers were picketing factories in support of their neighbours.” She is critical of the banks and says they have forced people to go on-line with humans taken out of the equation.

Department inspections can be stressful with one woman saying they got a slap on the wrist for a cobweb while for another the dairy wasn’t passed because calf feeding buckets were there. All felt there was too much duplication with multiple forms asking the same questions for different schemes. “Ear tags have changed four times since I started farming,” says one.

“Farmers are self-employed and stand alone. They like animals, fresh air and physical work. But are stressed by bureaucracy, investment costs, loans, feed and product prices and the weather,” says Kate.

The purchasing power of farmers also came up for discussion. A half bag of potatoes would have bought the week’s groceries in their early days farming. What 30 cows bought would now take 100 to do the same. And there wasn’t much hope that things would improve.

The mention of broadband produced a collective moan, however some of the women were signed up to local providers with acceptable results.

Looking forward

Looking ahead Catherine hopes to be taking a back seat with her son Vincent running the farm. “There’s a group of farmers his age in the area so I see farming remaining stable, if not expanding around here.”

Karen’s advice is to let children off to try a few things before coming home to farm. “We will see another generation on this farm. The faces might change but farming remains the same.” Rosarie reckons she will have slowed down, “a case of wanting to do it rather than having to do it”.

Margaret expects to see change to her farming life. “It will be difficult for Neddie to farm and instead of being the back-up I’m farming and that will be hard to keep up.”

Kate expects to grow their ice cream business. She believes there’s scope to do more with the farm. “We want to cut our energy use. We want to maintain our traditional values of good welfare and neighbourliness. We have young people in the pipeline to go farming so the place won’t be planted.”

Dairying expansion will continue says Rose. “Dairy farming is very solid around here. It gives great economic stability to the area and that will continue. I can see more farmers installing robots to cope with staff shortages.”

All agree they are living in a good place with plenty going on in the communities in which they live. Catherine and Rose are set dancers, Karen loves running, and Rosarie crochets while Margaret has learned to play the keyboard.

Kate says the GAA and primary schools are keeping the countryside alive while Catherine notes that young people are returning to their home place, wanting to settle but face tough planning restrictions. The outlook for farming looks solid and safe in this corner of the Premier County.