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Farming

Lamb’s tale still lives on two centuries later

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The Superannuated Man.

Country Living with Francis Farragher

One of the little regrets I have with working in Galway city is the fact that I can never really ‘take holidays’ in a place that’s associated with the daily grind of what we call work. These days there’s a throb about the city that’s hard to replicate anywhere else but that ‘damn nuisance’ of work prevents us from savouring its delights apart from maybe a half hour around lunchtime.

There’s some kind of psychological barrier present that prevents a man from facing back into a city from ‘the sticks’ in the evening after escaping from the peak hour traffic logjams. Shows, films and plays, that all look so seductive on coloured brochures, seem to lose their lure when the evening snack has been consumed and a rustic wander lust takes over.

Fields, bogs, cattle and dogs always seem to win that internal battle of wills over great shows, plays and strange dancers, while after-work invitations to partake in a few beverages have been jettisoned by a late middle aged fear of blue flashing lights in hot pursuit around Claregalway.

There’s a real envy there too during our lunchtime breakouts from the asylum to witness people with time on their hands, leisurely consuming ‘pints of plain’, outside places like Garavans, the King’s Head and Tí Coiligh’s as a smorgasbord of street musicians, singers and performers earn their daily bread.

Here and there, the big effort will be made to take in a show during the arts festival or a day at The Races, but the effort to escape from the clutches of everyday chores, just seems to take far too much energy and planning.

At times like that, my mind wanders back to a Spartan desk in a classroom at Tuam CBS four decades back where we read the Charles Lamb essay about The Superannuated Man and his forlorn struggle to sample more frequently the pleasures of life to be enjoyed in time-off during the late 1700s and the early 1800s in London town.

In those days, Lamb worked as an office clerk from early ‘til late, Monday through to Saturday, with Sunday his only day of the week to switch off from the world of figures and ledgers. During those more puritan times though, Sundays in London were days of worship and rest where all the normal buzz of the city went into a kind of weekly hibernation, prompting Lamb to observe:

“In particular, there is a gloom for me attendant upon a city Sunday, a weight in the air. I miss the cheerful cries of London, the music, and the ballad-singers – the buzz and stirring murmur of the streets. Those eternal bells depress me.

“The closed shops repel me. Prints, pictures, all the glittering and endless succession of knacks and gewgaws, and ostentatiously displayed wares of tradesmen, which make a week-day saunter through the less busy parts of the metropolis so delightful – are shut out.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Connacht Tribune

Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety

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Galway IFA Farm Family and Social Affairs Chair Teresa Roche

GARDAÍ and the IFA have issued a joint appeal to all road users to take extra care as the silage season gets under way across the country.

Silage harvesting started in many parts of Galway last week – and over the coming month, the sight of tractors and trailers on rural roads will be getting far more frequent.

Inspector Conor Madden, who is in charge of Galway Roads Policing, told the Farming Tribune that a bit of extra care and common-sense from all road users would go a long way towards preventing serious collisions on roads this summer.

“One thing I would ask farmers and contractors to consider is to try and get more experienced drivers working for them.

“Tractors have got faster and bigger – and they are also towing heavy loads of silage – so care and experience are a great help in terms of accident prevention,” Inspector Madden told the Farming Tribune.

He said that tractor drivers should always be aware of traffic building up behind them and to pull in and let these vehicles pass, where it was safe to do so.

“By the same token, other road users should always exercise extra care; drive that bit slower; and ‘pull in’ that bit more, when meeting tractors and heavy machinery.

“We all want to see everyone enjoying a safe summer on our roads – that extra bit of care, and consideration for other roads users can make a huge difference,” said Conor Madden.

He also advised motorists and tractor drivers to be acutely aware of pedestrians and cyclists on the roads during the summer season when more people would be out walking and cycling on the roads.

The IFA has also joined in on the road safety appeal with Galway IFA Farm Family and Social Affairs Chair Teresa Roche asking all road users to exercise that extra bit of care and caution.

“We are renewing our annual appeal for motorists to be on the look out for tractors, trailers and other agricultural machinery exiting from fields and farmyards,” she said.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Calls to ‘revisit’ exclusion of sheep sector from Brexit reserve fund

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Deputy Seán Canney

MINISTER for Agriculture, Charlie McConalogue, has been asked to review a decision taken over recent weeks to exclude the sheep farming sector from the Brexit Adjustment Reserve (BAR).

East Galway Independent TD, Seán Canney, has called on the Agriculture Minister and Government to ‘revisit’ the issue of sheep farmers and the BAR fund.

Galway IFA Chair, Stephen Canavan, also said that a mistake had been made in terms of excluding the sheep sector from the BAR funding.

“I think that there is no doubt whatsoever that Brexit had a major impact in terms of New Zealand lamb exports flooding the UK market.

“The knock-on affect of that on Irish sheep farmers was a serious fall-back on lamb and hogget prices through the early months of this year.

“There are now serious concerns that the farmers who buy in store lambs through the early autumn period will just pull out of this market after getting such a scalding over the past six months or so,” said Stephen Canavan.

According to Deputy Seán Canney, all of the Regional Group of TDs are backing the move to get the Government to have another look at the use of the BAR fund for the sheep sector.

“The evidence that sheep farming was affected by Brexit is strong and the decision not to support people in this sector needs to be reversed immediately.

“Brexit negotiations began in June 2016 and caused turmoil in the sheep trade as it weakened the currency making UK lamb far more competitive.

“The notion or threat of ‘a no deal ‘ in Brexit caused the price of sheep to fluctuate repeatedly in the trade and resulted in lambs selling for an estimated €30-€50 lower per head each year during the entire Brexit process,” said Deputy Canney.

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Dairy sector driving land market

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Auctioneer Martin O’Connor of DNG O’Connor

WITH the exception of Leitrim, Galway was marginally the cheapest county in the west and north-west to buy non-residential farmland during the course of 2022, according to the latest national survey of prices.

The survey showed that the average price of an acre of ‘good land’ in Galway last year, for holdings under 50-acres, was €9,500 – the dearest was Donegal at €12,143 while the cheapest was Leitrim at €6,140 an acre.

Jointly researched by Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCCI) and Teagasc, the survey also indicated that only 0.5% of land in Ireland goes up for sale each year, a major factor in terms of demand for leased land.

‘Good land’ in Mayo [under 50-acres] averaged out at €10,092; the figure for Roscommon was €9,938; with Sligo coming in at €9,550.

When it came to a comparison of poorer quality land in Connacht [under 50-acres], Mayo was the cheapest at €2,886 followed by Leitrim on €3,300 while Galway topped ‘poor land price league’ at €5,375 per acre.

Auctioneer Martin O’Connor of DNG O’Connor, Oughterard, said that the market was being driven by dairy farmers ‘who are continually ranked throughout the survey as the most likely purchasers of land across the country’.

He said that changes in the European Nitrates Directive in relation to improving water quality meant that many dairy farmers needed more land to comply with this directive.

“In order to maintain current levels of milk production – and to comply with the directive – many dairy farms will need to either increase their land area or reduce milk production.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App

Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.

Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite  HERE.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

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