John O’Sullivan’s parents Christy and Eileen moved from their 25-acre farm in Beaufort to a 68-acre farm in Castleisland in 1969. “It’s the kind of land that looks great in this weather,” says John, “but the soil is heavy, so high rainfall is not to its liking.”

A second farm of 71 acres was bought in the early 1970s. Interest rates rocketed, but his parents managed despite the imposition of milk quotas. This was also the era of the “milk wars” as co-ops fought for milk supplies.

My dad got knocked out when I was a teenager and I got involved in the farm

“My father always thought going to the creamery was a waste of time. So when Bill Kennedy organised bulk collection we switched supplier to Golden Vale, later Kerry.”

There were seven children in the family, with John the third eldest. “My dad got knocked out when I was a teenager and I got involved in the farm and worked as a contractor for the guts of 10 years. The place was signed over to me in 1998 and he died in 2001. My mother, Eileen, remained heavily involved. She’s just turned 80 and was milking 110 cows up to three years ago.” Eileen’s prowess as a baker and her skill for icing wedding cakes is well known too.

We are expanding cow numbers and John has enough to do. So we were facing hiring someone to look after the calves

Marian and John married 19 years ago and they have three boys ranging in age from 17 to 11. Marian worked in retail in Shaw’s and last year she faced a crossroads.

“We are expanding cow numbers and John has enough to do. So we were facing hiring someone to look after the calves. There’s a lot of work in 120 calves especially with a tight calving season of six weeks when calves are coming fast.” Marian decided to quit her job and go farming full time and this spring was her first full calving season.

“My friends ask if I’m actually in the shed doing the work. They can’t believe it. But I love it and it’s brilliant. Far from being lonely; there’s always people dropping in and we had three farm walks in February, one group of 200, and all that right in the middle of calving.”

What’s more Marian has had a 100% success rate with the calves. “I treat them like my babies.”

Flower farming

In the space of a few short years Maura Sheehy has developed an award-winning flower business from scratch. She is very appreciative of being handed down a parcel of family land that was part of a small holding carrying eight or nine cows. The mother of seven has turned her parcel of land into a plant paradise.

Maura grew up on the small holding with her mother Noreen, seven siblings and her dad Dan who was a lorry driver. While life was hard, Maura absolutely loved where she grew up and where she still lives today. “I’m from Barryroe, just outside Tralee, and it is the best place in the world to live.”

Maura was a stay-at-home mum who loved gardening. She credits her grandparents for the interest. When her youngest started school, Maura studied horticulture part time at the organic centre in Drumcollogher and completed a PLC course in Listowel Community College.

This was supposed to give me an interest for when the children flew the nest, now I don’t have a second to myself

“I got a grá for studying and I was able to fit it in around my children’s school times.” In 2011 she began to grow cut flowers and before she knew it she had a growing florist business on her hands. It now employs both her husband and herself as well as several part-time gardeners and florists.

“This was supposed to give me an interest for when the children flew the nest, now I don’t have a second to myself.” She credits the ACORN programme, established by Paula Fitzsimons and the Department of Agriculture for its support. She also praises the Moving-On programme devised by Lisa Fingleton and NEW Kerry Development for its initiatives for women. Like several of this group of farmers she too is involved in social farming.

Born for hardship

While 2019 marked Marian O’Sullivan’s first year of full-time farming, John Roche began his farming career in Firie, Castleisland in the early 1950s. John grew up during the war and says nothing much had changed in farming in the previous 100 years.

“My father, Tom, was the first man to make silage in Kerry. Until then it had been all hay, impossible to save in wet summers, there was no spraying corn and it was full of weeds. Then we had the winter of 1947, one of the three worst winters of the 20th century. Livestock mortality was frightful.”

You couldn’t describe the work. You’d be piking grass all day long, working 80-100 hours a week

John says silage saved farming but it was pure hardship. “You had to dig three pits and make two banks on either side of them. Then the cut grass had to be piked into the pit and horses were walked back and forth to pack it in.

“You couldn’t describe the work. You’d be piking grass all day long, working 80-100 hours a week.” John has written a great account of these times in his book Born for Hardship – A Life through Changing Times.

In the mid 1940s you wouldn’t get five shillings for a bonham but by 1949 you’d get it for a rabbit as the UK market opened. Picking blackberries was another source of income. Rationing was still in force in the UK up to 1954, so trade was limited.

I have no regrets. We were all in the same boat. Whatever about farms, you couldn’t imagine the poverty in the towns

But whatever about the hardship, farming was all John wanted to do and he chose to leave school at 14 to go farming. “I have no regrets. We were all in the same boat. Whatever about farms, you couldn’t imagine the poverty in the towns, people had nothing. Nearly everyone emigrated and unlike now, never returned.”

But from 1948, things began to change. Tractors appeared. The Young Farmer’s clubs and then Macra na Feirme got going. Along with Michael Kerins, John was a Kerry delegate to the Four Provinces ballroom in January 1955 where the establishment of the NFA was proposed. John was in dairying up to his retirement and his son Tommy continues the dairying tradition.

Eamon Horgan, Marie Walsh (visitor) and Marian O’Sullivan.

Social farming – ‘we’ve never looked back’

Eamon Horgan is a sheep and suckler farmer from Kilgarvan. He is a big supporter of the Healy-Raes because of the work he says they do for ordinary people. Eamon inherited the 125 acres of mixed land from his father Edward and mother Nora in 1997 and it’s stocked to capacity.

He was in plant hire for 10 years up to 1999 when he had a serious tractor accident. He broke his pelvis and was laid up for the best part of a year. “After that I went driving full time, but I was away from home a lot and that didn’t suit as there was too much work to be done at home. Then the recession hit and that put paid to the driving work.”

Eamon has been involved in social farming for six years and has nothing but praise for it. “Joe McCrohan of South Kerry Partnership is the most inspirational person I know. He is the Denis Brosnan of south Kerry with go-forward vision.

“I saw the advertisement looking for farmers and thought, ‘Wouldn’t that be a nice earner?’ but there’s no payment for what we do. I liaised with Lisa Murphy in South Kerry Partnership, met the support worker and my two participants and we never looked back.”

A good mix

Helen and Danny O’Mahony live in the townland of Lissanor where the family have farmed for generations. They are in sucklers with weanlings sold at seven to eight months. Previously they were in dairying and they don’t rule out a return to that enterprise.

They were heavily into pig farming for over 30 years, operating a “birth to bacon” system. “It was cyclical, good some years, bad others. For a finish there were more downs than ups. We faced having to make a substantial investment to go to the next level so we got out eight years ago,” says Danny.

I loved farming and animals and I’ve loved being a farmer all my working life

They run a contracting business and sell Pöttinger machinery and their son Padraig farms with them. Helen and Danny were married in 1976 and she jokes that she thought she was marrying a millionaire and Danny thinks she’s lucky he brought her down from the mountains. “I loved farming and animals and I’ve loved being a farmer all my working life,” says Helen.

In the last few years, the family have become involved in social farming. Currently there’s a network of 19 farmers and 33 participants. The latter could be stroke victims, have profound intellectual disabilities, have autism, have acquired brain injury or have Down’s syndrome. Both say there’s unbelievable potential in social farming.

John O’Sullivan, John Roche and Helen O’Mahony.

So what does the future hold?

Looking to the future, Marian and John have a dilemma. “We are milking 120 cows. Expanding means more labour and money spent on facilities. In our discussion group, cow numbers are on the up so do you stick or drive on,” asks John.

They worry that dairying is being pushed too hard and they wouldn’t like to see the New Zealand model with the connotation of “dirty dairying” happen here.

“We know we have to build for the future and we’d hope one of the boys would be interested. But we are being pushed to expand, it’s not that we want to,” says Marian.

Danny O’Mahony says costs are on the up and if farmers received a fair price they wouldn’t need to keep expanding. Price transparency for farm produce is vital says Helen.

Are farmers next? The UK market is vital for us, it’s more important than Mercosur

“There’s plenty of money in the end product, but farmers are not getting their fair share. We have too many farm organisations, costing us too much. We need one voice,” she says.

The disappearance of local services worries Danny. “Are farmers next? The UK market is vital for us, it’s more important than Mercosur. We must get that east-west relationship right,” he says.

As to climate change, they all agree there’s definitely an issue but blaming the suckler cow is unfair. “Over the years we’ve planted 160,000 trees on marginal land on the farm. I don’t believe on doing it on good land,” says John Roche.

He says he never thought the UK would leave the EU. “We are part of the EU but also an island off the coast of Britain. They are our nearest market so it’s going to be rough.”

Maura sees a future in horti-therapy. “People are disconnected from nature. If we could get more people gardening and being in nature it would really help them. I also think there’s a big opportunity in growing foliage.”

All three social farmers believe the benefits to farmers balance the benefits to participants. It makes farms safer, helps fill the empty nest and takes away isolation, they say.

Everyone around the table agreed on the need for a good life-work balance. “Padraig is out contracting and that’s hard on family life,” says his mother Helen. Marian agrees, saying that the best laid family plans can get blown out of the water by something happening on the farm.

I was always optimistic about farming but now I worry about the prospects of any young person starting out

John Roche says it’s hard to say what the future will hold. He’s worried about the beef processors. “Their intention seems to be to break down farmers and work from feedlots. I was always optimistic about farming but now I worry about the prospects of any young person starting out. We’ve farmed here for 10 generations, and my son Tommy milks 140 cows. As for the next generation, it will be their own decision,” he says.

I see my boys playing at being farmers and I worry that their dreams won’t come true

Eamon is happy farming and his biggest fear is what form farming will take for his two boys, Cian (14) and Liam (11). “Environmental rules won’t produce food. Will there be any farming on the Beara or Iveragh Peninsulas? Where will food be produced? He believes farming is getting an unfair hammering from environmentalists. “This farm reared five of us, now it wouldn’t rear two. I see my boys playing at being farmers and I worry that their dreams won’t come true.”