The CountryWide team feature the events, people and happenings that bring colour and life to communities, towns and villages across Ireland. Listen live Saturdays at 8am on RTÉ Radio 1.
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The CountryWide team feature the events, people and happenings that bring colour and life to communities, towns and villages across Ireland. Listen live Saturdays at 8am on RTÉ Radio 1.
Reporter Ella McSweeney travels to Kerry and to a group of farmers tackling one of the hardy perennial issues – social isolation. This small group in and around Faranfore decided to do something to help their happiness: they agreed to meet in the Warehouse Cafe in Faranfore every Friday morning for breakfast.
Michael Feely is the chair of a group called the Young Sheep Farmer Forum who last month made recommendations to government on how to best promote generational renewal. The forum of young farmers is facilitated by the Kepak Group.
Joined by Cheryl Poole, Wexford dairy farmer, Seamus Boland, CEO of Irish Rural Link, Magaret Donnelly, Editor of the Irish Farming Independent, and Fintan Kelly, environmental pillar’s Agriculture and Land Use Policy Officer.
Throughout 2025, the Countrywide team was on the open roads visiting homes and farms across the country, and here are some of the team's favorite pieces.
For this special edition of Countrywide, we have gathered stories of Christmas preparations from across the country and sprinkled them with music from RTE Lyric FM's ever popular Choirs for Christmas competition. (For copyright reasons the full tracks performed cannot be podcast)
Lorna Siggins meets Peter Connolly, Dara Bailey and Ray O Beara of Bádóirí an Chladaigh as they illuminate three traditional boats with Christmas lights in the Claddagh Basin.
There’s an Irish Christmas food tradition from coastal communities that traveled the world. Salted White Fish, boiled potatoes, drowned in white sauce, served on Christmas Eve night. It has been observed as far afield as Newfoundland, but Aran Islanders lay special claim to it.
Frances Murphy is a candlemaker originally from Bere Island in West Cork. She is an aromatherapist and reflexologist who has developed her own range of sustainable candles.
Following one year on from Philip's last visit, East Galway farmers Joe and Michael Dempsey have once again suffered another TB breakdown, leading to their farm going into lockdown. With calves being born all the time, many more expected in January, and no sale of animals off the farm allowed, Joe and Michael are struggling to cope.
Darina Allen of Ballymaloe Cookery School discusses how, long before Turkey became traditional, Goose was our Christmas roast of choice and had been since medieval times.
Three more years of derogation from nitrates directive for 7,000 farms announced by the Department to prove to Brussels that derogation farms are not harming sensitive natural habitats. However, a report has revealed a further decline of Ireland’s natural habitats. Environmental lawyer Alice Whittaker and derogation farmer Gillian O'Sullivan.
Louping Ill is a serious tick borne disease, deriving from the distressing behaviour of infected sheep - including jumping - or louping. Now, a problem for hill farmers in the West of Ireland. With a vaccine potentially being brought to market, John Gibbons who farms near Tourmakeady, and vet Fiona Murphy explained to Lorna Siggins the impact.
Could a little grass-herb, dismissed in the past as a weed, play a key role in solving Ireland’s livestock/water quality issue? With Thomas Moloney, DLF Seeds; Thomas Duffy, dairy farmer.
A visit to the newly opened tourist facility which will also play a role in preserving the genetic heritage of our native pony. With Cathy Snow and Martin Coyne.
PJ Davon, the lead Stonemason in Connemara National Park, tells Treasa Breathnach how to building a stone wall is part engineering exercise and part art form.
BBC Farming Journalist Anna Hill reports on the impacts of two years of the virus in England and Wales. Dept of Agriculture deputy chief veterinary officer, Dr Eoin Ryan, on what will happen if the virus is found in livestock south of the border.
The CountryWide team feature the events, people and happenings that bring colour and life to communities, towns and villages across Ireland. Listen live Saturdays at 8am on RTÉ Radio 1.
