I was very fortunate to be granted with this year’s exchange to the Republic of Ireland. I have always had a dream to one day visit this beautiful country, but never thought I would make it there so soon. I had the opportunity to meet some of the nicest people, and see some of the most beautiful sights.  I spent my exchange with the Ireland Young Farmers, but they call them selves Macra na Feirme. It’s a youth organization much like our own however the age range is 17 to 35 years of age and they are much more politically involved. I spent 22 days in the Republic of Ireland with two Scottish exchange delegates and 10 hosts. 

I began my exchange by being picked up from the airport by the Linster Vice President of Macra na Feirme Tommy Dolan. Despite me being extremely tired Tommy had a whole weekend planned for me at the International Miss Macra event. It was a really fun weekend, I have never seen anything like it. There are several girls mostly from Macra but also international that compete in something comparable to a pageant in hopes of being crowned the next Miss Macra. The girls had individual interviews in private and in public, competed in fun games and some showcased their talents to the public. In the end one girl was chosen to represent Miss Macra for the year, and celebrations began.

Tommy also brought me to the Tinahely Agricultural Show, the neat thing that Macra had at the show was a mechanical bull. People could pay two euros to go on, and it brought a ton of people to the Macra tent. People asked a lot of questions about Macra and how they could get involved in a club near them.

After a jam packed weekend I moved on to my next host, Eve, where I also met up with two more delegates from Scotland, Karen and David. I spent most of my exchange with them.  We spent our time seeing the sights of Kildare County, including: seeing the K Club, Arthur Guinness’ grave, National Stud, Japanese Garden and a visit to Macra headquarters and the IFA (Ireland Federation of Agriculture).  Eve then took us to meet Dara.  We were really late so we missed the organic farm tour, but we did get to milk Dara’s cows.  I’m not sure how all four of us fit in his tiny 10 unit swing parlor, but we managed! I don’t think I’ve ever seen 60 cows milked so fast, in such a small parlour.
Next we stayed with Gail, on her small hobby farm. She took us to see several sights including: Fern’s Castle, a renewable energy center, Glendalough and the meeting of the waters. She also took us to the smallest pub in Ireland, which was literally in the middle of nowhere! Here we got some real Irish culture. They had the most amazing band that played mostly Irish music and we loved it!  They involved the audience as much as possible by playing music from the different cultures in the pub. The place had an amazing atmosphere! The pub was called The Dying Cow. Apparently years ago the police or as the Irish call them the Guards would stop by this pub to see why they were still open after legal hours. The pub owners would simply explain to them that they had a dying cow and this was the vet and his crew. They said it just wouldn’t be right  to let them go home without giving them a beverage to thank them for coming out so late at night. The guards accepted the reason and left without giving them a fine. This worked on several occasions and now the tiny pub is known as The Dying Cow.

Eric was our final host in the Linster region. Eric took us to learn about wind energy, at a sight where wind mills were just being set up, as well as giving us a good insight into what a twenty-first birthday means to the Irish! Your twenty-first birthday is a really big deal in Ireland. Everyone gets really dressed up, they rent a hall and celebrate with friends and family! 

We also spent one night with the President of Macra, Michael Gowing. Michael and his girlfriend Catherine (former Macra President) had us for an amazing BBQ dinner  where we met several people we would be spending time with over the next week and gave us a tour of his large dairy farm. Michael had a pretty incredible story about his farm. He told us that he sold two acres of land in one part of the county for ten million dollars, to buy a much bigger farm that held two hundred and fifty cows in another part of the country! We all thought that was a great deal! The interesting thing about Michael’s farm is that he only does Spring calving much like many dairy farms in Ireland. We did visit another farm that did Spring and Fall calving but it was rare to hear of a farm that calved on a regular basis like we do here in Ontario.

We showed up next at the Tullamore show where Macra hosted the finals of their Farm Skills competition. Six teams competed in a farm quiz, backing a tractor and roller through an obstacle course, stacking a bale on a barrel and fence building. In the end one team took home the 2009 Farm Skills Title. At the farm show we also saw livestock judging, a dog show and many booths, much like our large farm shows here in Ontario.

The following day we moved into the Munster Region. Our new host James took us to several sights including Fota Wildlife park, Rock of Cashel (a beautiful castle) and the famous Blarney Stone. We all took our turns kissing the Blarney stone! When you kiss the stone you have to lie down at the top of the castle and hang over the edge,  support yourself and stretch out to kiss the stone(luckily there are bars below you and someone holding your waist!). Legend has it, that if you kiss the Blarney Stone, you will be able to talk you way out of any situation. I haven’t had the chance to try out my newly found power, but I’ll let you know how it goes!

Tommy was our next host, and what a tour guide he was! He lived a two minute walk from a gorgeous little beach. I do have to say though his cows had a better view of the beach than Tommy did from his house! He seemed to know his area very well! We went to sights you would never see unless you were with a local Irish person. We climbed down the side of a cliff, went to a stone circle, visited the most southerly tip of Ireland, went to a Hurling match, a circle fort and visited his family pork farm, where we learned how the hard times of the pork industry are also affecting pork producers in Ireland. Unfortunately the weather never seemed to co-operate with Tommy, we were going to go whale watching but it got too windy and when we got to the most southerly tip it all of a sudden got foggy, so we couldn’t see the light house and he was going to show us the sea weed lit up at night but the moon was out! None the less he was a fantastic host and we saw more then we ever imagined in two days!

We spent our last night there with the Munster Vice President Michael Manley. His sister took us to see where the Titanic had made its last stop before it sank and a light house. That night Michael took us out on the town to visit the rest of his club!

The last area we visited was the Northwest Region and we stayed with John Kenny the Vice President from that Region.  At this point one of the delegates Karen had to head back to Scotland and part way though this week, David left as well. John took us to several sights including Roscommon Castle,  Roscommon Agricultural show, a Macra meeting, Athlone Castle,  River Shannon, a Gaelic football match, a farm with pedigree beef, a coal mine and a turf site. One thing I learned about was their major source of energy, turf. Turf is peat that is made up into logs and burned to create heat in people’s homes. 

Our next host was David. He took us out for the day to see Glencar Waterfall, Lissadell Estate, Darty Mountains, Drumcliff Church and a 550 cow dairy operation. We made it to the farm just in time to watch chores in action. The farmer, Padraig, had a 20 unit swing parlour and it took 4 hours to milk in the morning and 3 hours at night. He was looking at a rotary parlour but unfortunately the quota system is crashing in Europe and the milk price is around 20 cents a kg, verses our 75 cents here in Ontario, but he hopes to build a new parlour in the future.  I was once told how technologically advanced they were in Ireland, and they are for the size of land they have, but definitely not to the extent I was expecting. In Ireland they pasture all of their cows for most of the year. From February to October they are on pasture and then November, December and January they are fed inside. They have to improvise there feeding styles a lot as corn or as the Irish call it maize, doesn’t grow very well in most of the county and they have a hard time getting more then one cut of haylage off due to all the rain. So they feed what’s available at certain times of year.

That night the Scottish Delegate David left and I was moving on to another host, Theresia and Vincent. It was late when we got to there place, so we had a cup of tea and went to bed! The next morning I woke up to quiet the surprise! They lived on a mountain! It was an absolutely incredible sight! It was too bad I only got to spend one night there, I could have spent days there!

My trip was quickly coming to an end, I spent my last days back with John doing some more sightseeing and then headed back for Canada! I want to thank JFAO for giving me this opportunity. I enjoyed my trip so much and would highly recommend this exchange to anyone! I never would have seen half the things I did without being on the exchange with Macra na Feirme or met any of the wonderful people I had an opportunity to meet!