Farming on an offshore island has its own challenges, but it’s a life steeped in tradition where the help of neighbours and the local community comes into its own. 

This article was featured in our West Cork Farming 2026 magazine – you can read the full magazine here!

Island farmers also have to contend with host of issues on a daily basis, getting vets on to the island in an emergency, transporting feed onto the island and livestock out to marts all while contending with the impact of unpredictive weather on the operations of island ferries.

Cape Clear based farmer Fiona MacLachlan was born in Singapore where her Middleton born father was based as a pilot. 

“My father’s contract specified that he had to take 2 months off every year, but that time couldn’t be spent in the Far East. He needed to have a base for these two months, and ended up buying a house on Cape Clear.” 

The family later bought land on the island, and after some time spent travelling, Fiona moved to the island in 2000 to become a fulltime farmer. 

She currently farms 30 acres and keeps to her father’s plan to only farm native breeds, which include Kerry cattle and Kerry bog ponies. 

In the past year, Fiona decided to reorganise her farm in order to have a lower stocking rate and encourage greater biodiversity.

She sold her existing livestock and bought two Kerry heifers.  “They’re too young to calf this year, so I’ll be going back into the calving routine from next year.”  

Fiona enjoys her life as an island farmer, but says it does come with its own unique concerns, particularly sourcing emergency veterinary care which she says is a worry. 

“The local vets are brilliant, and will try and diagnose as much as they can by phone.  If it turns out the problem can’t be treated by an injection or antibiotics, then you need to get the animal loaded into a trailer, onto the ferry and out to the mainland as soon as possible.”  She credits the help of the island community in coming together to help at such time. 

“Neighbours really help each other here, everyone on the island has some knowledge of animal welfare, and will help you if you need advice.”  

She explains that the emergency services refer to island as ships at sea. 

“We are treated in the same way, if one of the islanders experiences a medical emergency, they are evacuated by helicopter or lifeboat, and to an extent the islanders themselves act like the crew of a ship, coming together to helping each other out in a crisis.”   

 Fiona is adamant that there should be more help for island farmers. “My father was  the secretary of the local branch of the IFA  and his big issue was that there should be no cargo charges to the island.” 

Fiona outlines that to bring in hay or animal feed to the island, not only costs extra but requires additional handling.

“We have a really good supplier, who will bring in his tractor and trailer on the ro-ro ferry and deliver to a central point on the island, but there’s an additional charge on each bale brought in, added to that if you’re constantly watching the forecast to see if the ro-ro can operate.” 

The additional handling of all items coming into an island is also time consuming and can lead to damage she says. 

“On the mainland, you order hay it’s loaded onto a trailer and delivered straight to your farm. For us, the hay is dropped to a central point,  then you have to load it again, and offload it at your farm, with all the extra handling it can cause breakage.” It’s the same she says for getting bags of feed onto the island.

“The feed bag is put onto the boat, you need to be there on time to meet the boat, or the seagulls will get to the bags before you do!”

The system of getting animals off the island and to the local mart in Skibbereen, has improved she says.

“At one stage they used to put straps under the animals and swing them onto the boat, but we nearly lost an animal doing that and there were  welfare issues.” 

Now she says a trailer comes in and a crane lifts the trailers on and off the boat, however, the problem is she says that the ferry can only accommodate a limited number of trailers.

However, Fiona does credit one innovation since the pandemic which benefits her and other island farmers is Signpost webinars run by Teagasc.

“It’s difficult for me to get to training courses on the mainland. If there’s an evening course, I have to stay in a mainland B&B overnight and with ferry schedules I could be away for up to 24 hours and that’s not possible with livestock. Now with the Signpost webinars, I can sit with my laptop at my kitchen table.”

Overall Fiona enjoys life as an island farmer.

“I couldn’t see myself living anywhere else in Ireland, you either love it or you leave.”

There is one benefit though she says, “if your animals break out of your farm, there’s a 9 mile moat that  stops them actually leaving the island!