Family: “We’re farming between Galway City and Connemara, in Moycullen. We’re all involved. My wife Julie is at home farming with me.

Two of my sons, James and Pádraig, are working in the contracting end of the business; they’re farming in the evenings. My youngest son Seán is in college in Athlone. My father Jim is still going strong as well, he’s well involved and also has the bar in the village.”

We farm: “Sucklers and hill sheep. We keep the sucklers between the lowland and the mountain, so we try to have them kind of hardy. There would be a big run on the mountain, 500ac.

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At home there would be 70ac on the lowland, between owned and leased. The two blocks are about four miles from each other.”

Sucklers: “We’ve about 50 cows. We’ve a few purebred Salers heifers, Aubrac and Angus. The rest then are all crossbreeds. It’s a Limousin bull we run all the time. Limousin and Angus seem to suit us – easy calving, hardy calves.”

Sheep: “We’ve about 350 organic sheep on the out-farm. We lamb from around 5 April on the hills. They’re Mountain Blackface and Cheviots, and let out Cheviot rams. They’ll go out around 10-12 November.”

Contracting: “The lads have diggers and do mulching, fertiliser and a bit of reseeding, that kind of work. Most of the digger work is in construction.”

Education: “Julie is just finished the Green Cert and I’m just finished a Master’s in Ag Innovation at the University of Galway. I did it because Julie was finishing her Green Cert and I said: ‘My turn now to do a bit of education’. We’re always looking for diversification opportunities on the farm.”

Diversification: “Farms are big assets, but they don’t always pay their way without doing the little bit extra. We do the bit of machinery work and now we’re hoping to put up glamping pods in the near future.”

Quotable quote: “Whatever happens, we try to adapt and be ready for it. The only thing certain is that things change. You either go along or you get left behind.”