Farmers around Maam in Co Galway had been a long time waiting for a helicopter to help them fence hill land, young farmer Eimear Wallace has said.

“Everyone that fences in the valley came together and we hired out a helicopter for the day,” she told the Young Stock Podcast.

Wallace is farming with her family Maam in Co Galway. They run Connemara Blackface ewes crossed with Texels and keep Speckle Park cattle.

They recently gathered their sheep from one of the Maamturk mountains to be put to the ram.

“The quad is zero use to you. Compared to dairy farmers bringing in cows for milking, you wouldn’t have it as handy – no offence now."

Open territory

“It’s not straightforward to go out to the field and just bring them in. Up until two years ago, the top of our hill wasn’t fenced at all, so in a lot of cases you’d have fences going up the side of your hill, but then the top is all stone and rocks, it’s not fenced, it’s just open territory.

“So you’d hope that your sheep are where they should be. You’d want a couple of dogs. Myself and my brother normally do the gather together,” she told the Young Stock Podcast.

Listen to the full interview with Eimear below.