DEAR SIR: When I count my blessings I count my community twice.

Nurses struggled out in snow storms to serve hospitals; carers struggled up lonely lanes to look in on their charges; civil defence and army drove the length and breadth of the county lifting and laying those that were needed where cars could not go. They used 4x4s. Where 4x4s could not go, they used tractors. Where tractors could not go, people got out and walked.

Westmeath County Council staff were out, every precious second, trying to keep main roads open. When the red warning came in and people were asked to stay in their homes for their own safety, the council staff were still out. Decisions were made, priorities were set and everyone did their best.

Out here in north Westmeath, far from motorways and dual carriageways and primary routes, far from big towns and key services, our woods and our roads filled up with snow.

Our farmers stepped up. Our farmers who have responsibilities all day, all year. Our farmers, linked to the land and answering to it from early in the morning and late into the night, season to season and out in all weathers.

It was our farmers who carved their way through boreens and byways – their tractors chugging powerfully over fields of snow, emerging in gateways to start clearing snow and checking in on their neighbours. Their transport boxes made into makeshift snowploughs, scooping and sorting their way, inch by inch to connect us again to each other and the main roads.

My neighbour had cows calving in his sheds and animals to care for and his own fire to be in front of. But when all his own work was done, he turned not for home but instead he added another hour at least to his working day in freezing snow to plough a route out for my family.

For that, I am forever grateful to the Fox family and to Padraig. I hope that there will be some way we can recognise the work that farmers did and help them. The council could only do so much in this extreme weather event and it is special that out here we have a community that cares about everyone in it and will help where it can and how it can.