Island farming in Co Clare is often associated with the Aran Islands, but Fintan Guinnane and his family have their own corner of land more akin to the Golden Vale secreted away on an island in the Shannon estuary.

“I was born on Inishmacowney, or Horse Island. It consists of 234ac, it’s a mile and half long and a half mile wide,” Fintan Guinnane told the Irish Farmers Journal.

Listen to "Farming on the islands" on Spreaker.

“I’m farming part-time and I have 17 suckler cows and a bull on the island, and I sell all my weanlings at the end of the year.”

There are a number of farms on the island but apart from the livestock the island is now uninhabited.

“When I was growing up and living on the island we used to milk the cows by hand and separate the milk and give the separated milk to the calves and we used to make butter.

“We used to sell that to a local store here in Kildysert, who used to send it on to Cork and that was our living when we lived on the island. “I left when I was seven and half years of age because there was no school on the island.”

The Guinnane family had to leave the island when the Government at the time refused to reopen the island school or to provide a boat to take the children to school on the mainland.

“I remember the day we left the island very clearly. I remember weeks leading up to it not wanting to leave and pleading with my mother not to leave and asking ‘why do we have to move out?’

“I know the day that we left, my mother was very lonesome. She was very upset.”

The family switched from dairy to suckler farming and his father continued to travel out to the farm on the island every day. “We got used to it but we never stopped coming with my father on weekends to the island. We never forgot our roots.

Future plans

“A lot of people say to me that I’m sitting on a goldmine and could take tourists over and rent the house out there once it’s done up,” Fintan tells the Irish Farmers Journal. “I haven’t any real plans at the moment. I just want to do up the house for ourselves.’’

The next generation

Fintan’s youngest son Fergal also has a love for the island and plans to continue making the five-minute boat journey from Crovaghan pier to the island every day and keep farming.

“We’ll keep suckler farming and hopefully, maybe in the future, get bigger and increase numbers if we rent out some land next to ours from older neighbours,” Fergal said.

“We bring the cattle over in a boat that dad and his father built themselves. There are three outboard engines on the back of it and there’s a cattle pen in the middle of it and they just hop in and you drive them across.

“The cattle are very quiet here on the island and they’re not scared of the boat.

“I’ve no intention of becoming a dairy farmer. I reckon we’d struggle to get milk out of the island!”

“Maybe when I retire I’ll set up something and take people out. My son Fergal is very keen on the farming side of it but also on the idea of bringing people out and he has a great sense of knowledge of the island and history of it.”