All farmers are proud of the work that they carry out on their land and it is a way of life for them. They take great pride, care and dedication in not only the work they do, but in their livestock and land also.
The Irish countryside is the setting for some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, but amazingly for people even in this country, it is not something that they get to appreciate too often. Urban life is drastically different to that in rural areas, but there are opportunities for people to see this side of Ireland. One such way is a tour of Ballindrum Farm which is located in Athy, Co Kildare, just one hour from Dublin. This family home operates as an Agri-Tourism B&B and self-catering facility and also tours of the farm are on offer. Ballindrum Farm is owned and run by Mary &Vincent Gorman, a couple who has farming in their blood.
The Gorman family have worked hard over the years to develop their livelihood and they now farm over 270 acres of land all dictated to their expanding dairy enterprise. The abolishment of the milk quota has seen Vincent go from milking 75 cows in 2014 to 200 in a short space of time and he is intent on increasing that even further.
“We hope to get up to milking 400 cows over the course of the next couple of years that is the aim anyway,” stated Vincent. “Getting rid of the milk quota was the best thing ever as it allows smaller farmers to grow their business. Farming is always up and down and you have to take the good with the bad, but in my opinion there is no better way of life.”
Twenty six years ago, the Gorman family opened their doors to the public when they started the B&B. In 2002, they built their first of two self-catering units to achieved Level Four status, they highest level that can be obtained, and it sees them cater fully for people with disabilities.
“A lot of money was invested to acquire the level four and it allows anyone with a disability to manage on their own in two units on the premises. There is fully wheelchair accessibility unit, while their needs, are catered for. “
This farmhouse has won four national awards: The National Agri-Tourism Award, A National Award of Excellence, The Farm Family of the Year Award and The Dairy Farmer Award. The year 2000 brought a special accolade when Ballindrum Farm was runner up in the Family Farm of the Millennium Competition. Over the last few years, Vincent and his wife Mary have focused more on their farm tours, which sees them cater for people not only in Ireland, but all over Europe as well as other parts of the world.
“The farm tours have intensified over the last few years and we have groups from all over. We even had coach loads come from North America to do the tours. Through our location, there is access to many activities with Dublin being only an hour away, while Kilkenny is only fifty minutes in the other direction. “We give talks on how the farm is run and what we do on a daily basis. We would also give talks on the history of the location. In our new milking facility we have a viewing gallery where up to 50 people can watch proceeding when we are milking.”
In recent times, Vincent has upgraded his milking parlour and now milking takes less than half the time it did in the past.
“We changed from a 10-unit herringbone to a 40-unit Dairymaster Rotary parlour. A lot of research was done at the time and the advanced technology and back up service available from Dairymaster certainly influenced our decision.
“My son Brendan is interested in coming back to run the farm and he wanted to scale up and have a labour efficient system in place for bigger numbers. Dairymaster gave us a lot of help in the planning stages from their team which was invaluable as it was a green-field site. We can now milk 40 cows in ten minutes and as you can imagine, it is a massive time saver for us.”
Some of the work like silage making and slurry are contracted out to local contractors, Roger Perry (silage) and Basil Stephenson (slurry), but they do everything else themselves.
“We recently employed the Farm Relief Service to do some fencing to take some of the pressure off at this busy time on the farm.”
Time is of the essence for a man like Vincent as not only does he run the farm and farm tours with his wife Mary, he is also an active member of ICBF, Progressive Genetics National Cattle Breeding Centre plus he’s involved with three boards within Glanbia, and is chairman of the board of Management of the Athy Secondary School!
“Yeah I’m busy most of the time,” he laughed. “It is all about managing your time right and that is something I feel I do right. I’ve a part-time worker here and I also get a relief milker in when needed.”
Mary only retired as teacher last August and she runs the busy B&B and the tours, while we have three sons with one of them, Brendan recently went to learning the trade in New Zealand and Australia, but he is back home now and it will be brilliant to hand over to the next generation as that is what farming is all about. It’s a young man’s game. “
Contact Details:
Ballindrum Farm B&B,
Ballindrum,
Athy,
Co. Kildare
R14 FK58
Tel: +353 598626294
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 5 No 2, March 2017
