Countrywide Full Episode 16/08/2025

All around the country you might have seen combine harvesters and tractors on the roads and in the fields cutting the crops and bringing them in. Overall, Harvest 2025 is shaping up to be a positive one. The weather has stayed dry and the yields have been good. But as always, it’s a less rosy picture when it comes to the prices…

The economy of many coastal communities has changed in recent decades from fishing towards other marine-based industries. Lorna Siggins went to West Cork where seaweed is being grown in baths inside a temperature-controlled building right beside the sea.

On Sunday, the Irish Native Rare Breed Society will have a celebration of all their animals at Bunratty Castle in Clare. On 24th August they’ll be at the Longford Westmeath mart for another event. It’s all part of National Heritage Week which starts tomorrow with thousands of events to celebrate our built, natural and cultural heritage.

Earlier this week, reports emerged of a fish kill on the river Blackwater, initially believed to affect an eight-kilometer stretch between Mallow and Roskeen Bridge.

Preparations are in full swing in Fuddlestown, Co Wexford, for an on-farm local music festival taking place on the last weekend in August. Fuddlefest.ie for more details.

Janet Heeran writes about life as it unfolds on her husband's farm and in the classroom where she teaches. Here she remembers the 1954 Dublin Horse Show.

Mary McCann is something of a legend in Sport Horse circles, having bred some of the most successful showjumpers in the history of the sport. She brought horses to the Dublin Horse Show every year since 1956.

The centre piece of the Dublin Horse Show is the Nations Cup for the Aga Khan Trophy. The man behind the Irish team is Michael Blake from Tuamgraney.

The Cat Candy is a tan and white pony, owned by David Kelly, and ridden by 11 year old Freya Kavanagh. This year, it is competing in Class 93 - The Working Hunter Pony (Starter Stakes). What kind of preparation does it take to be selected to enter this ring?

Countrywide Full Episode 09/08/2025, live from the Dublin Horse Show in the RDS.

Throughout the programme, we keep an eye on Class 93 - The Working Hunter Pony (Starter Stakes).

For quite a few years, the Sport Horse industry has been trying to help the Racehorse industry with one of its knottiest problems. What becomes of retired racehorses?

Over 4.2 billion euro of goods and services cross the Atlantic every day between the EU and the US, and including Irish butter, cheese and whiskey. For more on what this means for Irish agricultural exports, we hear from Lorcan Roche Kelly of the Irish Farmers Journal.

Back in 2008, the Walks Scheme was set up to help open up more walking routes across the country on private land. Last weekend, about 7,000 people made the climb up Croagh Patrick. But beyond the Reek, there’s a lot more Mayo offers, including the Clogher–Newtown Forest Trail. https://www.sportireland.ie/outdoors/find-your-trails

While there are more walking routes and trails around the country than ever before, access to the Irish countryside depends on the goodwill and cooperation of farmers, landowners and the State. Helen Lawless is Access and Environment Manager with Mountaineering Ireland.

For the corncrake today, Ireland is a hostile place. In response to the threat of their extinction here, just under €6 million in public funding was allocated a few years ago in a project aimed at helping the corncrake survive. One of the places involved was Inishbofin, off the coast of Galway.

Donkeys are not native to Ireland, but were brought here from the Middle East and North Africa in the 17th century. A century ago there were 250,000 of them on farms across the country. Today that has dwindled to about 10,000. A few weeks ago, two foals were born on club member Donal Staunton’s farm in Clifden, Galway.

Countrywide Full Episode 02/08/2025.

John Graham is a vegetable farmer near Raphoe and over the last few years he’s run an honesty box, a farm shop and sold his vegetables in Letterkenny’s farmers market. He also hosts long-table dinners on his farm.