In his famous play The Field, John B Keane wrote, “There’s another law stronger than the common law. The law of the land.” Keane wanted to emphasise why the central characters in this work so fiercely defended their land ownership. I think this same fierceness was in many of the men and women defending their livelihoods over the past few weeks with the fuel protests.
I can understand why some were frustrated with how day-to-day life was affected, but if you can’t put yourself in the shoes of protesters and realise why they resorted to these actions, you might have missed the point. Unfortunately, the Government and parts of the media don’t seem to want to understand why this happened.
They would rather look upon the protesters as the foolish Bird or the vengeful Bull McCabe (to keep The Field references going). It’s easier to accept these conclusions than it is to deal with the problems, engage with people affected and discuss the best ways to move forward. I hope I’m wrong and positive changes come from this.
To be fair, for every person wanting to create positive change through protest, there are also people waiting to take advantage of the public anger and frustration to meet their own ends.
These people are anarchists – they want to tear everything down to ‘usher in’ their own warped view of ‘Irishness’. They take advantage of others’ lack of understanding around current world events and feed into fears stemming from internalised racism. These people need to be called out for what they are – they need to be kept in the fringes; away from the positive movement of the protest.
While I wax poetic about the protests, I admit I (and probably most other farmers) didn’t really have time to participate. I have been busy fighting my own battles here on the farm.
Calving has come to a sudden halt – not because we’re done, but because something went wrong in last year’s breeding. I have about 20 cows currently on the dole; sitting around eating silage and not being milked. They are happy out. I don’t know what went wrong.
I don’t mind a few stragglers, but this is far too many and it messes with our season
They got AI from the same bull – some went into heat two or three times, but for some reason they haven’t calved at the time I expected.
They are definitely in calf, but it looks like mop up from our actual bull. I don’t mind a few stragglers, but this is far too many and it messes with our season.
For breeding, we have all the AI bulls chosen from the catalogue and we’ve invested in a new bull for the farm; a fine, strapping lad from Co Limerick. I am hoping he scores just as well – if not better than – the Limerick hurlers. I was going to get a bull from Cork, but I worried he’d get tired and not perform as well in the second half of the breeding season.
We have plenty of strong maiden heifers this year; I’m thrilled with them. They are in one of our fields away from the farm at the moment, and soon we’ll bring them in to have them weighed and decide who to synchronise.
This involves playing God a little bit, getting them to go in heat around the same time. It’s very useful because you can get a bunch AI-ed in the one go. Once that’s done, I’ll keep them with our new Limerick lad to get them all acquainted.
The grass is growing well. I have a few patches that were damaged from the wet winter, but they will recover. I panic-bought a good bit of fertiliser as I was worried about supply coming up to silage season. I thought it would be safer to have in the yard than to go looking for it when it was too late.
It’s going to be an expensive year. Even though we have our own machinery, I know when I add up all the inputs, the overall cost will look mountainous compared to last year.
On the solar energy front, I gave up on the idea of ever getting a TAMS grant and instead got a commercial grant from the SEAI. It only took a few minutes to get approval – DAFM could take a lesson from them. This is going to cost more, but it’s the right long-term investment. The way this war is going, we may be glad to have our own power source.
It’s important to invest in the future of the farm – we can’t wait for anyone else to make things happen.
Read more
Desperate Farmhusband: ‘I like to think I’m progressive – but I'm old fashioned'
Desperate Farmhusband: ‘meditating in the jeep felt silly – but it's great'
In his famous play The Field, John B Keane wrote, “There’s another law stronger than the common law. The law of the land.” Keane wanted to emphasise why the central characters in this work so fiercely defended their land ownership. I think this same fierceness was in many of the men and women defending their livelihoods over the past few weeks with the fuel protests.
I can understand why some were frustrated with how day-to-day life was affected, but if you can’t put yourself in the shoes of protesters and realise why they resorted to these actions, you might have missed the point. Unfortunately, the Government and parts of the media don’t seem to want to understand why this happened.
They would rather look upon the protesters as the foolish Bird or the vengeful Bull McCabe (to keep The Field references going). It’s easier to accept these conclusions than it is to deal with the problems, engage with people affected and discuss the best ways to move forward. I hope I’m wrong and positive changes come from this.
To be fair, for every person wanting to create positive change through protest, there are also people waiting to take advantage of the public anger and frustration to meet their own ends.
These people are anarchists – they want to tear everything down to ‘usher in’ their own warped view of ‘Irishness’. They take advantage of others’ lack of understanding around current world events and feed into fears stemming from internalised racism. These people need to be called out for what they are – they need to be kept in the fringes; away from the positive movement of the protest.
While I wax poetic about the protests, I admit I (and probably most other farmers) didn’t really have time to participate. I have been busy fighting my own battles here on the farm.
Calving has come to a sudden halt – not because we’re done, but because something went wrong in last year’s breeding. I have about 20 cows currently on the dole; sitting around eating silage and not being milked. They are happy out. I don’t know what went wrong.
I don’t mind a few stragglers, but this is far too many and it messes with our season
They got AI from the same bull – some went into heat two or three times, but for some reason they haven’t calved at the time I expected.
They are definitely in calf, but it looks like mop up from our actual bull. I don’t mind a few stragglers, but this is far too many and it messes with our season.
For breeding, we have all the AI bulls chosen from the catalogue and we’ve invested in a new bull for the farm; a fine, strapping lad from Co Limerick. I am hoping he scores just as well – if not better than – the Limerick hurlers. I was going to get a bull from Cork, but I worried he’d get tired and not perform as well in the second half of the breeding season.
We have plenty of strong maiden heifers this year; I’m thrilled with them. They are in one of our fields away from the farm at the moment, and soon we’ll bring them in to have them weighed and decide who to synchronise.
This involves playing God a little bit, getting them to go in heat around the same time. It’s very useful because you can get a bunch AI-ed in the one go. Once that’s done, I’ll keep them with our new Limerick lad to get them all acquainted.
The grass is growing well. I have a few patches that were damaged from the wet winter, but they will recover. I panic-bought a good bit of fertiliser as I was worried about supply coming up to silage season. I thought it would be safer to have in the yard than to go looking for it when it was too late.
It’s going to be an expensive year. Even though we have our own machinery, I know when I add up all the inputs, the overall cost will look mountainous compared to last year.
On the solar energy front, I gave up on the idea of ever getting a TAMS grant and instead got a commercial grant from the SEAI. It only took a few minutes to get approval – DAFM could take a lesson from them. This is going to cost more, but it’s the right long-term investment. The way this war is going, we may be glad to have our own power source.
It’s important to invest in the future of the farm – we can’t wait for anyone else to make things happen.
Read more
Desperate Farmhusband: ‘I like to think I’m progressive – but I'm old fashioned'
Desperate Farmhusband: ‘meditating in the jeep felt silly – but it's great'
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