I milk: “150 Holstein Friesians, supplying Dairygold, on 100ha with 20ha which is rented – it’s in two blocks. Last year, the cows did 540kg MS/cow.”

Dry weather: “Cows are slipping a small bit. They’re back to about 20l/cow and solids are back 0.15kg/cow/day. The average farm cover is slipping a lot so I’m allocating grass just once a day as cows are getting meal and silage.”

Costs: “It has been a tough year on costs; milk price is back 20% on 2025. It makes the margins small, but we’re doing the best we can. It’s good to see markets are getting slightly more positive anyway. Hopefully into next year, things will get a bit better. We’ll take the good with the bad.”

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Succession: “I originally came from a 10ha beef farm and my father was a teacher. I fell into farming with my uncle, Connie. Half my story is down to him. He wanted to step back and wanted to see me drive on, so we went into partnership in 2020 and I’m farming on my own since he passed away in early 2025. He was a great support. If there were stressful days, he’d say: ‘The most important part of this job is, enjoy it. The problems will move on.’”

TB: “Originally there were 75 cows here and all stock were finished, but cows were more my thing. Six weeks after building a new milking parlour in 2023, we lost 30% of the herd to TB and that autumn we lost 15% of the remaining cows to a neospora outbreak. So that put us on the back foot. In spring 2024, we bought 40 cows with good genetics to help build back the herd.”

Spare time: “I’m farming full time since I was 22 and I found I had to make space for a social life because it’s important to have one. I used to play GAA with Grenagh but milking cows took over the sporting career.”