Enterprising farmer allows you choose your own Christmas tree

IT started out being an overgrown plantation of Spruce, Fire and Pine trees – ‘something of a lost cause’ – but now the magic of Christmas has transformed it into a thriving enterprise.

About 25 years ago, a company called European Forest Growers encouraged Irish farmers to plant Christmas trees, but no sooner had the company appeared on the scene than they were gone again.

A number of farmers across the West of Ireland felt that their time, land and money had been wasted, but Martin Lynskey from Gloves, Athenry, thought that there just might be a niche in the local market.

On a very small scale, he started to sell a small number of trees to local buyers but his plantation was too thick and overgrown for a viable operation to be established straight away.

“He had to put a of work into clearing and thinning the plantation but now he’s in a position to offer a selection of trees for each customer to pick out their own particular favourite,” Martin’s wife Jacquie told the Connacht Tribune.

While the business was initially a ‘slow burner’ it has really taken off over the past seven to eight years with the same families and customers returning each Christmas to pick a new tree.

It is now the main enterprise on Martin Lynskey’s farm but, as Jacquie explains, while the sales period is confined to that month before Christmas, management of the plantation is an all-year round job.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now.

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