Rural Life

• 

  

  Eamon O’Connell: Fighting crypto can be a losing battle – but there’s light at the end of the tunnel

• 

  

  ‘Farmers are willing to open up their land if they get a bit of respect’ – rural Ireland resists ‘right to roam’… but is there an acceptable compromise?

• 

  

  How ‘green lairds’ are ousting Britain’s tenant farmers

• 

  

  Eamon O’Connell: How to avoid costly mistakes when administering antibiotics, dosing products and dry-cow minerals

• Dublin gang uses rural Airbnb as base to carry out 20 burglaries in five days

  

• 

  Why I’ve started going to the gym at 46 – and why I’ve had to park my ego at the door

  

• 

  John Downing: Fine Gael dusts off wellies and looks to grassroots as elections draw nearer

  

• 

  ‘I leased out my farm when I retired, now the tenant is wrecking the place. What can I do?’

  

• 

  Hannah Quinn-Mulligan: Why failing in my dairy partnership might be the best thing I’ve ever done

  

• 

  ‘They did as much if not more work than their husbands or partners’ – calls to speed up end of exclusion of female farmers from pension rights

  

• 

  Jim O’Brien: Dressing to impress, even yourself, is a challenge as the mileage mounts

  

• ‘With the low milk prices at the moment, the vending machines are saving us’

  

• 

  ‘There is complete and utter objection to it’ – farmer on EirGrid pylons

  

• 

  ICA faces Revenue probe as it emerges member quit over ‘culture of omerta’

  

• 

  Hannah Quinn-Mulligan: It’s hard to look your most glamorous when all your deadlines strike at once

  

• 

  Jim O’Brien: The short evenings, the crackle of the fire and other signs that nothing stays the same

  

• 

  When Boycott became boycott: The day the Irish people gave the English language a new word

  

• 

  ‘I can’t remember the last time I cried, but I certainly did that night’ – vet Eamon O’Connell on having to put down his ‘faithful co-pilot’ Cosco

  

• 

  Meet the Waterford farmer using ancient methods to grow grapes and make wine

  

• 

  Hannah Quinn-Mulligan: Someone dumped sick horses on my land – how can they be my problem?

  

• Tipperary woman makes history to become first full-time independent cattle hoof trimmer

  

• 

  ‘Drastic’ changes needed to gain farmer support for Athlone to Galway Cycleway

  

• 

  Hannah Quinn-Mulligan: ‘Gentleman foresters’ are buying up land – but they’re not a big threat to farmers

  

• Clarkson’s Farm’s Kaleb Cooper: If my kids move to London they can visit me – I’m not going there

  

• 

  ‘I want to sell the family farm to pay for my father’s nursing care but my sisters are trying to stop me’

  

• 

  Leitrim farmers open the door to their area’s storied history with interactive townlands project

  

• 

  ‘Farming is a vocation and there’s no holidays. You can’t tell the cows you’re off to Santa Ponsa, milk yourselves’

  

• 

  Andrew Bergin: How upland wintering is key to keeping the Burren beautiful

  

• 

  Vet's Diary: Can I have my ball back please – when foreign objects cause mayhem on the farm

  

• 

  ‘Once your space is intruded, there’s no relaxing any more’: Personal experiences of farmers standing strong against crime

  

• 

  How this Tipperary couple opened up their farm and now attract ‘thousands of visitors’ a year

  

• 

  Eamon O’Connell: How I used one cow as a blood donor when her comrade was bleeding from her milk vein

  

• 

  Hannah Quinn-Mulligan: Why pre-nups are unfair on female farmers

  

• 

  Why this blacksmith is using the same methods as the Celts, the Vikings and the Romans to make iron