Ear to the Ground returns to RTÉ with presenters Darragh Mc Cullough, Helen Carroll and Ella McSweeney meet ordinary people with extraordinary stories that will challenge, inspire and entertain the nation.
Ear to the Ground will not succumb to the current doom and gloom climate, but instead will examine the very positive role agriculture and food can play in digging us out of recession. Darragh, Helen and Ella will be getting their hands dirty as they get on board the “Grow It Yourself” craze sweeping the nation as the series continues to seek out stories of innovation, hope and often heroism in this dramatic time of changing fortunes.
This year the series will introduce viewers to purple carrots and spiked cabbage in West Cork; catch up with an Irish family who left just before the recession hit and who are now farming in France and check out milk which promises a good night’s sleep. It also looks at land values, legal poisoning, farm subsidies, rural crime and whatever is causing heated debate in the Irish countryside.
Programme One:
Ella McSweeney shows just how heroic she can be as she embraces the latest shift towards self sufficiency and introduces us to her own pigs. Having pampered them in her back garden for five months, will she be able to turn them into pork for the winter?
Ella hasn’t named her pigs and mirroring the country’s new found thriftiness, wants to ensure that not a scrap of her piggies is wasted.
Ear to the Ground viewers will see just how Ella copes with arranging their slaughter; making her own black pudding from the blood, and eating fried testicles and pigs brain. She even invites Helen and Darragh to sample the fruits of her labours at her Feast for Free.
Following a good year for the countryside with increased profits in dairying, a bumper crop of grain, and a fresh bounce in the rural economy, seasoned reporter Darragh Mc Cullough probes the issue of agriculture’s ability to lift the gloom. He’ll be at one of the country’s many food festivals talking to the producers, consumers and experts about how the rural economy is battling the recession.
Helen Carroll meets an enterprising couple who have turned their mountain and sheep herd in South Kerry into a tourist attraction. Bernie and Muiris O’Donoghue have developed Geokaun into a walking trail with a difference – visitors pay to walk. In these tough times, will tourists, locals, and school groups cough up?