Mark Harold-Barry’s farm in Cordangan, near Tipperary town, is steeped in heritage. It once formed part of an estate owned by Lord Barrymore, who, though based in Fota, Co Cork, owned 6,000 acres of farmland in Co Tipperary.

Back in its heyday the farmyard, where I met Mark recently, hosted a forge, carpentry shop and creamery, with a herd of 104 cows, milked twice daily by six milkmaids.

While those days may be a distant memory, the farmyard with its fine buildings remains a place of great industry, with 20 beehives, a saw mill, a workshop and a wonderful kitchen garden, all at the heart of a fertile 170-acre farm which produces high-quality organic beef, oats, honey and timber.

Mixed woodlands

Mark’s father, John, a retired vet who specialised in horses, bought the core of the holding at Cordangan back in the 1960s, and recalls neglected fields overrun with ‘buachaillan’ (ragwort) and gorse, painstakingly reclaimed to today’s fertile pastures and cropland.

But it’s the scattered pockets of mixed (in age and composition) woodland which are the really notable feature here, testament to John’s (ongoing) practice of planting a half-acre of trees every year – for over a half-century!

The result is remarkable, scattered 40-acre ensemble of Scots pine, silver fir, oak, spruce, beech, sycamore, larch, red cedar, alder and – John’s favourite, ash – trees, among others, all brought to life by his remarkably detailed and loving descriptions.

Mark with his yearling Angus-cross cattle, with some mixed woodland behind.

Economics

Since taking over the farm from John in 1996, Mark has developed a successful organic mixed-farm enterprise.

His approach could be described as being guided by ‘economics’ – seeking to optimise not only ‘profit-margins’ (better grants, reduced inputs, diverse outputs) but also ‘time-margins’, so that he could also make time for his many other interests and responsibilities – not least as parent to his, and wife Kay’s, four daughters.

For the past 15 years Mark has produced organic oats for Flahavan’s, with any excess grain, and straw, used for his livestock.

Mark usually sows around 35 acres of oats, employing a rotation of two years under oats, then as long as possible under grass.

He harvests the crop himself with some ‘vintage’ machinery, which, he feels, is better suited to dealing with lodged crops and occasional weeds.

Mark’s ability to service his own combines is a key asset, feeling that he simply couldn’t afford or justify the cost of new machinery at his scale.

Mark also produces organic beef from his herd of c.20 cows, mob-grazing them on 90 acres of pasture, finishing at around 28 months for sale via the Good Herdsman.

The fields are rich in white clover – generating a double-dividend in terms of building soil fertility while also providing nectar for his bees.

Likewise, field margins are deliberately wide, hedgerows are fulsome and even thistles are tolerated, all providing great bee-fodder, the honey from which Mark sells at local outlets.

Mark is proud to have a viable farm: these assorted income streams have helped him and Kay, who works as a SNA in a nearby Gaelscoil, to send all four children to medical school (two already graduated), which is surely as good a measure as any of a farm’s viability.

Mark Harold-Barry.

Mechanically-minded

Every farm has something unique about it, often reflective of the farmer’s own interests. Just as Cordangan’s magnificent trees reflect John’s tenure and talent, Mark’s legacy features some wonderfully bespoke engineering exploits – such as the self-made concrete-and-steel farm bridges across the River Arra which dissects the holding.

This reflects Mark’s interest in engineering, which he studied, and subsequently practiced (repairing, driving, and ultimately owning, some trucks), before taking over the farm.

These engineering skills found plenty of use on the farm – the evidence is everywhere, perhaps most impressively in the form of the substantial farm sheds which Mark has spent two decades constructing.

The extended timescale reflects his ‘build-as-you-earn’ approach: he decided against farm building grants, finding the specs just too restrictive.

Good ancestors

When I ask Mark about the biggest challenges facing farmers today, he says it’s loneliness, with farming becoming an increasingly solitary pursuit for many. In contrast, his father John recalls a day back in the 1960s when his wife Dinky brought tea to 16 people, gathered in one field to save hay.

While Mark feels blessed to be surrounded by his parents, wife and children, he recognises that others aren’t so fortunate.

A lovely reflection on the inter-generational family legacy at Cordangan is John’s recounting of the day, 52 years ago, when he was planting some oak saplings, and sent the then five-year-old Mark back to the farmhouse to get the tea.

Father and son both recall this (and the fact that the tea was cold by the time it got there!) while standing beneath the massive trees that grow on the same spot today, some of which are now being milled by Mark to help construct and repair farm buildings and fences.

It’s a lovely example of the concept of the ‘good ancestor’ (thinking long-term in a short-term world), with each generation of this warm and welcoming family leaving its own mark, and legacy, through which future generations can be sustained.

Top Tip

Make time for yourself on the farm, time to pursue your own interests.

Learn More

A lovely five-minute film on Mark’s farm can be seen by scanning the following QR code: