Chapter 1: What is An Feirm Ground and its impact on rural well-being?
Let's just temporarily take a little detour off this road to fossil fuel free farming and stick with what Keith Meredith was talking there about mental health. Last month, a farming support initiative received a national recognition for its impact on rural well-being. On Ferrym Ground 2 won at the ANTA Star Awards 2026, highlighting emerging adult learning programmes making a real difference.
The initiative works with ag professionals, advisors, vets, veterinary nurses, inspectors and so on, giving them the skills and the confidence to engage with and support farmers who may be in distress and don't know how to ask for help.
Chapter 2: How does the initiative support farmers facing mental health challenges?
Our reporter, Della Kilroy, this week visited a sheep farmer and mental health advocate in Wexford.
Yeah, we're just going up to a field here. I have some sheep here in the field, a bit of land I've rented. So we're just going up here and we'll see some ewes and lambs. The lambs were born in February, so they're getting a bit more lively now. Obviously a lot of work at lambing time, of course, and with sheep.
They seem lovely out in the field, but there's quite a lot of work getting them to that stage. And usually they would come running over now when we see them. And sometimes if we call them, just bah, bah, bah. Come on, come on. Come on. Come on. These sheep would have lambed inside and when the weather gets a bit better then we put them outside.
So you can see the sheep here just walking over now looking for a lamb. She'll start to ban and then sometimes the lamb will pick it up and he will answer. There are no bottles needed so they can go and get that feed very, very easy. It's still, even though we try sometimes, but it's very hard to beat nature.
I'm in North Wexford with sheep farmer George Graham. After struggling with his own mental health challenges, he now advocates for other farmers to open up about their problems.
Well, farming is challenging. There's no point in saying otherwise. It's a great way of life, but a great way of life doesn't always put money in your pocket. In the modern world, a lot of people work on their own. You need to be a lot of different things, really.
You probably need to be a bit of an electrician, a bit of a mechanic, probably a little bit of an accountant, and it probably wouldn't be any harm if you were a bit of a solicitor as well, to work out all the things that has to happen on a farm. Fatigue is a big problem as well, and that then can lead on to mental well-being problems.
You've spoken about mental health struggles you've had in the past. Tell me about that time in your life.
Yes, that's probably, what, 14, 15 years ago. I was going around in a daze for quite a long time, probably didn't really know what was wrong with me. I didn't, and I certainly wasn't going to ask anybody or tell anybody, either a typical man. I flew to the north of Norway to work. Little did I know the problem would come with me. Everybody's not like the way I was that time.
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Chapter 3: What personal experiences shape the guest's views on mental health?
More information at mensnetwork.ie. And if you need a hand at your back right now, this morning, rte.ie forward slash helplines.