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The Dutch have a saying: “God made the world, but the Dutch made Holland.” This is because 65% of their land area was reclaimed from the sea. This very saying came to mind when I visited Patsy McInaw’s farm in Turras Hill, Mountcharles, Co Donegal. Patsy reclaimed the majority of his farm from bleak moorland to enclosed green fields with a combination of hard work and determination.
When Patsy was just 14 he left school to work in the construction sector, labouring mainly, and he also helped out on the home farm.
“Our farm was typical of the area. There was five acres of what we called arable land where potatoes and oats were sown every year and about 35 acres of rough grazing,” he explained.
According to Patsy, the rough grazing area was all in one block with no internal fencing. He said the land only grew heather and wiry grasses, which meant they could only graze Scottish-bred sheep there during the summer and a couple of cows; lowland bred ewes would not survive in those conditions.
“The land was a cutaway blanket bog, and a simple sod fence was used to keep the livestock out of the five acres of arable pasture during the grazing season,” said Patsy. There was little or no barbed wire and a freshly cut bush would be used as a gate.
Patsy’s father did not have much interest in farming which left him to his own devices to make management decisions and changes to the farm. “I started reading the Irish Farmers Journal from a young age and that inspired me to make some key changes to the way we managed the place,” he explained.
Starting point
He started spreading basic slag (a calcium rich by-product of steel-making), guano (the best source of potassium at that time which came from seabird excrement in South America and is also high in phosphorus) and bone dust (ground animal bones which were a good phosphorus source) on the drier areas of the farm.
“Everyone said I was wasting my time and money spreading fertilisers on the poor ground,” Patsy remembered. Despite the negative comments and unkind remarks, his trial was a success and the farm started growing grass. “It is very hard to describe the feeling I had when the heather started dying back and grass started to grow in its place – it was unbelievable,” he said.
He continued to spread small amounts of fertiliser on the farm and improved it in sections. In the early 1980s, an ECC grant became available for sheep fencing and spreading lime. Patsy availed of this grant, which allowed him to start dividing up the farm into fields. At this time, he took the opportunity to start buying in ewe lambs and selling them the following year as breeding hoggets. However, after 1990, this system became unviable for a period and he bought a ram to run with these hoggets instead, lambing them down in the spring.
Stone walls
After the confidence Patsy got from successfully growing grass on the poor ground, he wanted to make even more improvements. In 1989, he built two small stone pillars leading into the house and it all kicked off from there.
“After building the first two stone pillars, I built a wall around the house and next the farmyard,” said Patsy. The wall building soon progressed to the farm. “We were lucky in that we had a very good supply of stone on the farm and I was a builder so the two came together really,” he explained.
The land sits on a sandstone base. In the past, a large canal was dug out by the board of works to bring water from a reservoir at the back of the farm down to a mill. The stone came out in moderate-sized pieces, which he was able to break into smaller pieces using a sledge hammer.
When he used all the stone that was excavated from the canal, he started breaking out high banks of stone from the land. Slowly, but surely, the wire fences erected in the 1980s were replaced with well-built 5ft-high dry stone walls.
Patsy is of no doubt that the work he carried out was very labour-intensive and understands that wire fences would do the job. He just had a great passion for the work and said the walls will be intact for generations to come. “He went stone mad,” his wife Patricia joked. Today, there are over two miles of wall built on the farm. This is an extremely impressive feat given that not one wall stood on the farm 26 years ago. The walls were not just built for aesthetic reasons but they also provide great shelter for livestock which is needed in the area. “The Atlantic coast is just a mile up the road and the walls give some protection from the cold wind,” explained Patsy.
After a lifetime of hard work, the poor-quality farm has been transformed into a respectable holding with plenty of character. Patsy reseeded fields using minimum cultivation techniques mainly. He ploughed one rough field but said ploughing does not suit his ground.
Traditional grass seed mixtures with some clover were used because new high-yielding varieties do not tend to survive on the acidic soil type. Some more land was bought adjacent to the farm bringing the total area to 50 acres.
The family runs a breeding ewe enterprise comprising 104 ewes and six suckler cows. There are also 12 dairy calves being reared on the farm for the first time this year.
“The farm is not highly stocked but this scale of production would be unimaginable in the not-too-distant past,” said Patsy. He says the fields are not exactly the Golden Vale but they are all capable of growing grass which was not the case when he started farming. A small amount of drainage work was carried out, which mainly involved cleaning existing drains.
The transformation from moorland to grassland was really brought about by increasing the soil pH, the application of fertilisers, and enclosing and grazing fields. All stock are housed during the winter and some silage is bought in to make up the shortfall after home-produced silage. The McInaws are currently participating in GLAS and were in REPS when it launched in 1994. “Without the EU schemes, we would not have been able to invest all the money we have in the farm. They were a great help,” said Patsy.
The family continue to build walls and are in the process of building two sections which are intended for completion this year. “My two sons Brendan and Joseph, who both have day jobs, are very interested in the farm and will keep up the wall-building I am sure,” Patsy said. Patsy is a great advocate for the Dry Stone Wall Association of Ireland and says they do great work in promoting Irish heritage.
Wall style
All the walls were built using sandstone. They are two faced battered walls with no internal packing stones. Battered means they are wider at the bottom and get narrower at the top. To set up the walls, he digs out a foundation by cutting away the top sod of ground. Usually, Patsy places a large stone at the base of the foundation where the two stone faces sit. This means the wall will settle evenly and there is less chance of it slipping.
To improve the durability of the wall, a combination of through stones and bond stones are used.
The through stones sit across the wall from one side to the other and help to prevent the face stones falling out. The bond stones sit two-thirds of the way across the wall and they too help prevent slippages, improving the overall structure.
Capping stones are placed on top to add weight and strength to the wall. A profile is set up using metal bars and builders twine to act as a guide to help keep the wall straight.
Stone festival: The Tír Chonaill Stone Festival, in its fourth year, takes place from 23 to 25 June in Glencolmcille, Co Donegal. The Irish Dry Stone Wall Association says this will be an educational, living heritage festival, offering dry stone walling and stone-carving workshops for all levels of ability, from beginner to experienced. Wicklow granite quarry man David McEvoy, Patsy McInaw and special guests from Dry Stone Canada are among the speakers. Also, Scottish master craftsman George Gunn will take part in the walling workshop, which is to be built in the ‘‘Feidin’’ style of the west of Ireland. Music by night and a cultural tour on Sunday is set to complete the weekend.
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