Episode 1 Ar Bhealach na Gaeltachta

What kind of breed of cattle are these and why are they special?

This is a Dexter cow.

They're an Irish breed of cow and they date back as far as the 1800s

from Dundrum in County Tipperary.

It was a guy called Mr Dexter

and he had interbred the Angus and the Kerry Blue

and that's how they came up with the smaller cow - they're smaller than both those breeds of cows.

Years ago, every small farmer would've had a Dexter, a Dexter cow.

They would have kept them for their beef and their milk

and they were known as the poor man's...the poor man's cow.

So, and then, when the bigger cattle came in from the Continent,

like the Charolais and the Limousins and that, the Dexter

sort of become a dying breed,

up until, you know, about 10, 15 years ago.

There was a lady in Northern Ireland, Deirdre Hilton,

who was very active in getting the Irish Dexter back into Ireland

and getting the breed well known again, which today, you know,

is quite well known, so it's gone from, like,

a poor man's cattle, to, like, a gourmet beef, which is great.

They're very easy to keep.

You know, they're very light on the land and, of course,

then they're very easy fed, because they're grass-fed only.

And talking about the grass, why is this particular

part of the country, you know, good for keeping these kind of cattle?

Well, because they're an Irish cow, they thrive in hilly land.

They don't need a really, really rich grass,

which a lot of the big animals may need to sustain them.

And we're very lucky down here, because we're right beside the coast,

so our animals would... A lot of them that we would be finishing,

we'd finish them down by Ballyhoorisky

and they would be eating a lot of seaweed and all the sea grass,

which has a lot of natural salts and a lot of goodness in the land

and they would also...they would forage away for the natural herbs

and heathers and things like that that other cows might not like to eat.

Do you find yourself becoming attached to the animals

and do your children become attached to them in any way?

Our first Irish-born cow was born in 2009.

She's called Maisie Moo. She'll always be here.

Um, you know...we'll never, sort of, sausage her!

But, no, you can't really form it.

If you've a herd of 200 animals, you can't really form an attachment.

You'd go very hungry!

THEY LAUGH

And how have consumers responded to this kind of thing?

I think a lot of people are going back to farm-to-fork.

They want to know who the farmer is.

They want to know where the animal comes from, how it's kept,

that everything is above board, that they're treated well, and again,

what goes into their food system - you know,

there's no growing agents or anything fed our animals,

because they're allowed to grow naturally.

They're allowed to fatten naturally.

Our animals are two and a half, nearly three years

before they go to slaughter, so it's like a fine wine or a cheese -

the longer you leave it, the better it becomes.

MUSIC: The Good Life by Tony Bennett

# Oh, the good life

# Full of fun, seems to be the ideal... #

# All the sadness you feel... #

# ..fall in love... #

# Don't try to fake romance

# It's the good life

# To be free and explore the unknown... #

A lot of people hadn't heard of the concept of a more environmental

or more sustainable coffin, but once people sort of started,

I suppose, listening to the fact that you're chopping down oak trees

that were standing there for maybe 300 years

and not being replaced, the fact that we're making coffins

out of a more sustainable material suddenly made sense.

We're also looking at bringing back, I suppose,

a skill that has been lost in Ireland, which is basket weaving.

You often hear people say, "Oh, just bury me under a tree."

That was one of the things that actually got us thinking

about this business was hearing people say that.

I suppose you look at your traditional graveyard -

you've got big marble headstones, concrete surrounds, concrete paths.

Um, there's very little wildlife, there's very little nature in that.

You're really taking that ground for perpetuity.

You're taking it out of use.

What we've done is different.

We opened our graveyard -

the first thing we done was we sowed it out with a wildflower seed,

we planted trees around the place, we made a few paths -

just by cutting the paths out of the grass and the flowers.

People are buried, we plant trees on the grave and the whole place

sort of becomes a nature reserve, so the ground has a second use.

A lot of the families that are using it love it.

From the first day I went out with my father to do a funeral,

I always felt very comfortable sort of talking to people

about what was going on and helping them through it.

I see this as maybe a wee bit of an extension on that.

We get phone calls, we get... like, we had a lovely letter

from a woman last week whose son was buried in one of our coffins.

A friend of hers had said to her,

"Nature never betrays the heart that loved her."

And that had really sort of sat with her

and she thought she'd share that with us.

It makes coming to work in what a lot of people would see

as a sort of gloomy industry a lot easier,

if you know what I mean, and we enjoy it.

TRADITIONAL MUSIC