Burren Winterage Weekend will celebrate the link between local farmers and the environment
IT’S a special few days for farmers in the Gort, Kinvara and North Clare region with the holding of the Burren Winterage Weekend – an event that highlights the link between nature and the local farming community.
This is the time of year, when for generations, farmers in the Burren area, traditionally move their cattle from the lowlands to the drier higher ground for the Winter months – an arrangement that works perfectly both for the farmers and the natural environment.
The limestone landscape of the upland Burren area provides a warm and dry environment for the cattle to graze and rest, while at the same time allowing the lower areas to rejuventate for the following Spring.
Now the practice has turned into a ‘long weekend’, stretching from this Thursday, October 25 to Sunday, October 28, the high point of which will be the ‘walking’ of the cattle to the higher ground next Sunday.
Brendan Dunford, Co-founder of the Burrenbeo Trust, and the recipient of an honorary doctorate last week from NUI Galway for his work on the Burren, said that a rich variety of events had been lined up for this weekend.
"To celebrate this inspiring relationship between farming and nature in the Burren, each year the Burrenbeo Trust, together with the local community, joins the farmers on the October Bank Holiday weekend as they walk their cattle to the winter pastures.
"But the weekend of Burren Winterage also brings with it an opportunity to recognise the broader role of farming in shaping the Irish landscape and its link with nature.
“To this end, a rich variety of events to engage and inspire has been organised all through the Winterage Weekend, in different places around the Burren, to which the Burrenbeo Trust would like to invite the local and wider community," said Brendan Dunford.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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