Farmers in Wicklow and Waterford are bracing themselves ahead of an orange rainfall warning due to come into effect on Thursday.

One dairy farmer who contacted the Irish Farmers Journal this week maintained that their farm in Rathdrum, at the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains, had received 400mm of rain in January according to their own records.

“It’s crazy how wet everywhere is here and we’d have a very dry farm. It took until the end of April last year for the same amount of rain to fall as what fell in January,” the farmer said. Turnout and slurry storage are his two main concerns, he added.

ADVERTISEMENT

“It’ll definitely delay turnout – I’d say we’d need a full dry week for the driest ground to be any way workable. Slurry is a big problem for everyone around here,” he added.

Suckler and sheep farmer Niamh Keane from Enniskerry in north Wicklow described conditions as waterlogged despite being on exceptionally free draining soil.

“We haven’t been able to let any lambs out in the past 10 days. We have some of the earlier ewes and lambs out, ideally we’d have kept them in but we just don’t have enough space to hold them all,” she said.

Meanwhile, Johnstown Castle in Co Wexford received 232mm of rain in January, more than double the long-term average and its wettest January since 1996, according to Met Éireann. The rolling three month total at Johnstown Castle for November 2025, December 2025 and January 2026 is the highest consecutive three month total on record for Johnstown Castle with 652.5mm.