Adrigole’s busy animal sanctuary celebrates its new charitable status

THE Beara Farm Animal Sanctuary in Adrigole is looking forward to a bright future now that they have achieved charitable status, which will allow them to fundraise to care for the animals in their care.

The sanctuary is run by Jacquie Youngs and her husband Alan who relocated from the UK to Beara, where Jacquie’s Mum was born. Jacquie explained how a request for help from a neighbour soon led to them taking in animals in need of care.

‘I was involved in dog and cat rescue in the UK, and when we moved to Beara I thought we could help neutering the feral cats in the area. However, a year after we arrived, a neighbour’s daughter took in some orphaned lambs and asked if we could help with one of the feeds during the day, which we did, and then ended up taking the lambs, and it went from there.’

Some of the animals that have made the sanctuary home.

Jacquie and Alan then heard that the ISPCA were looking for a home for two kid goats. ‘The ISPCA came to do a home check first which we passed, but by then we’d taken in three cats in addition to our two cats we’d brought from the UK,’ explained Jacquie.

She also started fostering dogs, thought that didn’t quite go to plan. ‘We initially fostered two dogs, but failed at that – because we decided to keep them!’

Their menagerie soon grew, and a friend asked if they could take in a goat found on the roadside. The ISPCA contacted them to see if they could accommodate another kid goat which had been found in woods beside its dead mother.

Jacquie and Alan mostly take in farm animals. ‘We’re in a rural area and don’t have the facilities to cater for a lot of dogs, but we can help farm animals. We have four acres, and when word got out what we were doing when people heard of an animal in need they knew to contact us.’

The couple currently have 28 goats, eight pigs, four dogs, three donkeys, 30 hens, eight ducks and four geese. All of which means considerable costs in food and vets’ fees. They have received generous support from the people in Beara, but they are still dependent on fundraising.

‘We don’t get any government funding for what we do, but people have been fantastic and paying money to our account at Barretts Agri to cover the cost of feed. We were unable to fundraise for ourselves, so we decided to apply for charitable status and that came through in August, which will really help.’

One recent fundraiser took the couple by surprise when young Beara schoolboy Oisin Turner decided to compete a triathlon with his Mum and raised €520 for the sanctuary. ‘We are so grateful to Oisin and his family, he’s an amazing young man,’ said
Jacquie.

The couple is also planning to set up a trap, neuter and return scheme for cats on the peninsula and they also want to build new shelters on their land. ‘We really want to give the animals the care they deserve,’ said Jacquie.

The Beara Farm Animal Sanctuary can be contacted at [email protected].