The sheep on her back is in trouble when magpies arrive

Country Living with Francis Farragher

As young lads, many moons ago, one of the morning and evening jobs we’d get taxed with was to look at, and count, the sheep quite carefully.  One of the things you’d always watch out for was a ewe on her back – quite simply a mature sheep who would find herself on her back and be unable to free herself from that position.

If they weren’t spotted on time, they could eventually die due to a build-up of fluids, as one vet once explained to me, but there could be other quite nasty consequences as well.

One of the most feared flying creatures in the countryside in those days was the magpie – the feathered equivalent of one of those Spitfire aircrafts that the Brits used to thwart the Germans during World War 11.

The magpie, or magpies, would spot the vulnerable sheep on her back and these birds always had a particular liking for the eyes.

If the helpless ewe wasn’t freed in time, then the magpies would have had their breakfast, or dinner or supper and the poor sheep would be left eyeless for the rest of her days. Most of the days though, we always got there in time to thwart the magpies.

Over the past couple of weeks that image of the ewe on her back kept coming back into my mind every time I looked at a newspaper or my phone bleeped with some new revelation about our new agriculture minister, Barry Cowen.

Unfortunately, he found himself on his back, and after the first magpie had moved in, they arrived in droves to try to pick out some juicy pieces of flesh.

Whether you’re a sheep or a Minister for Agriculture, it’s no fun being on your back when the magpies are around whether they be of the feathered kind or the human variety who feed quite greedily on bits of news and scandal.

Now the magpies have their role to fill and there are many of us who are part of the great magpie family but the only problem is that when the sheep has righted herself, a time comes when there’s nothing to pick at.

A magpie might fly over the moving sheep but by then the chance has gone and the bird has to wait for another animal to fall into a vulnerable position.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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