Galway cattle can repel wildfires – that was the headline that greeted The Dealer in his inbox this week. Reading on, I realised the story wasn’t about firefighting cows, but instead an upcoming Farming for Nature farm walk on Nia O’Malley’s farm in the Slieve Aughties in Galway on 5 July.

O’Malley farms 60ha of bog, heath, and wet grassland, and has played a key role in a pilot grazing project to reduce Molinia, a type of grass species that contributes to wildfire risk. Her Galloway cattle graze the land to keep the grass down and thus reducing the fire risk with not a hosepipe in sight.