I farm: “Mostly continental cows, crossed with a Charolais bull. There’s just six left to calve out of 65. It has been a good calving so far with no major problems. I have a buyer for the strong bull calves in the autumn and I sell the rest through Raphoe Mart in the spring. I keep a few store cattle as well.”

This week: “It’s been a good winter apart from two weeks ago when we got some snow. At the moment I’m just feeding and tending to stock. I’m hoping to get slurry out if there’s a dry spell.”

There’s always a crisis of some kind, but this is as bad as I can remember

Brexit: “I’m only 15-20 minutes from the border, I’m old enough to remember when it was a border with customs and an army on it. I don’t want it to go back to that again.”

Grey area: “My vet is actually from Northern Ireland, just across the border, from Lifford. I don’t know how that’s going to work. It’s one of those grey areas where no one seems to know what’s going to happen.”

Future farmers: “If I was starting over again, I would be thinking about getting a job. If you want to stay in suckler cows, you have to produce a good animal, producing a good calf. A lot of the suckler men are part-time, using an easy-calving bull and the cow is calving OK and producing an ordinary calf, which you have to accept an ordinary price for. If I wasn’t here full-time, I would have lost 10% of the calves.”

Family: “My wife Elma is involved in the farm. She also works part-time in a care home for older people.”

Quotable quote: “There’s always a crisis of some kind, but this is as bad as I can remember. Everyone is under pressure with money and prices.”

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My farming week: Gene O’Rourke, Tullycoe, Cootehill, Co Cavan