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My name is Luisne Ní Urdail and I am 13 years old. I have just finished 1st year in secondary school.
My parents, Siobhán and John, run St Tola goat farm on my grandparent’s farm, just outside the village of Inagh in North West Clare. They make a variety of cheeses known as St Tola goats cheeses.
They have been leasing the farm for the last 25 years, making St Tola cheese, so they have a lot of experience in goat farming and cheese making. I’ve grown up hearing and knowing about St Tola all my life.
St Tola cheeses have been around for a long time. They were first made by Meg and Derrick Gordon 45 years ago, on a farm near ours, before they retired. Mum and Dad took over from them and moved it to our family farm in 1999.
Teamwork
They have a small team of great people who have been working with them for a long time. They are always very friendly to me and good fun. I know that Mum and Dad are very proud of the St Tola team. They employ eight people on our small 60ac farm.
On the farm, I love being with the kids (baby goats) – especially this time of the year, when they are young and need lots of care and attention. I think they are the cutest when they are tiny and their ears are still floppy. They jump around everywhere and anywhere; getting up to mischief just like two-legged kids. I like the smell of the milk powder which we feed them after they have come off their mother.
Our puck goat, called King Billy, was always my favourite, but sadly he passed away. I’m sometimes sad when our goats die or are given away, like some of our retired nannies and kids, but we can’t keep them all.
Fun on the farm
On the farm, I like to be a ‘passenger princess’ in the tractor. When I was younger, climbing on the bales with my brother, Caoilte, and our cousins was such a laugh and we also made forts out of them. We have great fun on the farm at different times of the year. On frosty or snowy days, we slide down the hilly fields on kayaks. On very hot summer days, we make a waterslide with plastic tarp and lots of washing up liquid.
I really enjoy picking and eating the raspberries and blackberries that grow on our farm. It’s always hard to save enough to make jam and tarts as they are so delicious.
I have a ‘Harry Potter’ scar from when I was four out picking blackberries with my cousins. I fell over on top of a gate that wasn’t hung properly – but sure there is always a gate that needs fixing on a farm.
Inside the cheese house, I sometimes help out at the filling machine, filling the small tubs of our St Tola Divine. I like the satisfying sound the machine makes. Smoothing out the surface of our goat cheese logs with a warm knife is also very satisfying, and adding ash to our St Tola Karst and ash logs is great fun as it can be very messy.
Sometimes, my cousins and I get jobs that can be boring – like labelling, re-packing or taping up boxes – but we have competitions to see who is fastest or can do the most. Us girls always win.
I like to go out in the van and do deliveries because I get to see inside interesting kitchens (and sometimes the chefs give me baked goods that are very tasty).
I also enjoy going to food festivals around the country with Mum, working on our St Tola stand, as I get to meet the children of other small business owners. We get lots of treats and get paid. There are also interesting activities at some of these festivals; specifically for us younger people.
I see how hard my parents work running their own small businesses and employing people. They have worked very hard, especially since the pandemic, and sometimes I ask Mum when will she retire, as I would like to spend more down-time with her.
My whole life, the weather has been chopping and changing, which makes it very difficult to farm and plan, at times.
Someday, I would like to become a child therapist. I can’t see myself working full-time in agriculture, but that of course could change in the future – just like it did for both my parents who were teachers before they decided to become farmers and entrepreneurs.
One thing I do know is that I love living in the countryside and being out in nature every day.
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