Keeping it real about the good countryside life

IAM always glad when lovely locals tell me that they read this column every week. “But I don’t always agree with what you say,” they sometimes add, and that’s fair enough, especially if it concerns their livelihoods. Or something going on around their neck of the woods that they prefer not to know, for it’s best not to be a nosy neighbour.

But it’s not just that my job requires me to do the opposite that I sometimes focus on less lovely aspects of rural life, because the very things that I cherish about the countryside are fast disappearing before my eyes, for no good reason beyond short-term gain.

Like our small fields that are steadily being replaced by huge tracts of land, like something out of America, their barren boundaries of fence and wire indicative of our disappearing hedgerows, with dire consequences for wildlife.

Which is why I lament that Irish farmlands are no longer the “hotspots of biodiversity” they were a few decades ago, according to BirdWatch Ireland, rapid change pushing out too many bird species as their habitats are destroyed.

While I love green roads as much as I loathe the motorways ripping through rural Ireland, destroying the serenity of sacred places — and the American fast-food chains and petrol stations that accompany them.

On that note, I care that our country towns are dying, not least because of the disconnection to their community of some country people, who drive expensive cars and know the price of everything but the value of nothing.

For they shop exclusively in supermarkets, rarely venturing into local businesses which they say are too expensive. Which also plays its part in why Irish farmers can’t compete with cheaper EU imports, so we are unable to grow even our cabbage and spuds.

I despair, that dumping not just goes on, but has actually increased during this crisis, plastic gloves discarded at scenic spots, Lord and Lady Muck leaving their takeaway cartons and bottles by the river, enjoying the view before doing their bit to destroy it.

I care that we still kill creatures for fun, and that hedgehogs haven’t a chance against the cars speeding along country roads. Fields are sold off as sites for new builds, turning the countryside into suburbia, with more land doomed to become lifeless lawn, the tell-tale yellow, ugly and dead, as weedkiller destroys the natural flora and fauna.

I am sorry that farmers who sang to the cows they named are long gone, replaced by spread sheets that matter more than animal suffering — and the bottom line always beats beauty.

While poetry is too often now a dead thing used by politicians to sound impressive, rather than our everyday parlance — because we have no time for taking our time, or the nuances and soft days we were once keen to note.

But my country cup is still resolutely half full. For life here gives ‘Lay of the Land’ many reasons to wax lyrical. As do lovely locals.