CountryWide

Countrywide Full Episode 18/07/2026

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The Sheep Show podcast is a weekly podcast both presenters are sheep farmers, but the twist is they are brother and sister, and the double twist is he - Andrew - is farming in Longford and she – Jill - is farming 150 miles outside Melbourne in Australia. Comparing and contrasting farming here and there each week throws up lots of food for thought.

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Today at Athenry Mart, President Connolly will be at the 6th national harvest of wool. It’s a meitheal organised by the Galway Wool Co-op. There will be shearing and spinning demonstrations and examples of soft wool garments made from wool of Galway Sheep. Suzanne Campbell traveled to the farm of Blathnaid Gallagher, Co founder to find out more.

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It costs farmers more to shear sheep than they get for wool, as we haven’t scaled up uses for wool in Ireland. Now, in order to re-wet bogs and block drains, farmers have been making water repellent Irish sheep wool into logs and burying them in the drains. Sinead Grimes of the Dulra Project explains.

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On Hawthorn Hill Farm in North Roscommon, Keith Brennan has been shearing his sheep.

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Charles Hughes, sheep farmer in Co Mayo tells Philip all about the process of shearing sheep in the current hot climate we're experiencing. However, imagine being the farmer who has to pay for this knowing that in the current market the wool is to all intents and purposes worth nothing.

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Countrywide Full Episode 11/07/26

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For generations, the Farrell family has farmed Inis Cloithreann Island on Lough Ree, continuing a tradition that stretches back more than 900 years. Today, Longford farmer and primary school principal Herbert Farrell carries on that legacy, making the one mile journey by boat several times a week to tend to his cattle on the 143-acre island farm.

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What does being well adapted to occasional blasts of this kind of heat look like? While simultaneously being adapted to increasing blasts of heavy rainfall? Philip spoke to farmer Michael Guinan in Rahan in Offaly to discuss the impact of ever changing weather.

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Ahead of Comhaltas Ceolteori Eireann’s 75th anniversary, we had a couple of the island's best musicians in studio: Robert Harvey on Whistling and flute, Aoife Vaughan on Flute, Cathal O Duibhir Baoil on Concertina, and Daragh O Duibhir Baoil on guitar. The performed ‘Beautiful Fresh Morning’ followed by two jigs (‘Grainne’s Jig’ and ‘Scatter the Mud).

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