As a tour guide, bringing visitors through the countryside, one of the frequent questions I get is "sheep are kept for their meat and wool, right?" Wrong. Unfortunately. It now costs way more to shear a sheep than you get paid for a fleece. Today's price is 55 cent per kilo, making an average fleece worth €1.50 while it costs €2 to €2.20 to shear a sheep. A good sheep shearer can shear 200 sheep in a day.... In times past, people wore what they could produce locally. In Ireland this meant linen (flax was grown all over Ireland) and wool. Those of us who grew up in the 60's and 70's all went to school wearing hand knitted wool jumpers and slept under wool blankets. And in those times, wool wa
This week my walking group had a great Sunday walk on the (nearly completed) loop walk of the Upper Vartry Reservoir. This walk is the result of a lot of hard work and commitment by a number of local people who recognised the beauty of this place, and the potential to attract more visitors to this area. We are pictured on the newly installed bridge - much more comfortable than using the stepping stones across the the stream below! We even had the pleasure of meeting our local Councillor, Shay Cullen, who has been very involved with this project, and he gave us an impromptu talk on how this loop came about and where the funding came from. Judging by the number of people we met on this walk,
