Series 33
Programme 3 – 7:00pm Thursday 20th November, 2025
RTÉ One – 1:10pm Repeated Sunday 23rd November 2025
Story 1 – Bird Flu
At the end of October John Fitzgerald, a small Free Range Turkey farmer from Co Carlow got the call that no poultry farmer wants to get – 15 of the 500 turkeys that he was rearing for the Christmas market were dead. The next morning 50 more had followed.
Fearing the worst, John rang his vet and soon the Department of Agriculture began to roll out its mechanisms for dealing with a major disease outbreak – Bird Flu had arrived.
For Ear to the Ground, John agreed to break his silence and speak with Darragh McCullough about the loss of his flock and the heartbreak of dealing with the consequences.
Story 2 – Plur Bakery
Seamus Jordan is a baker from near Borris in Co. Carlow.
He opened his own bakery in 2022 and was hoping to use Irish flour when making his breads and pastries. But as most of the wheat grown in Ireland goes to animal feed, finding the higher quality variety became difficult to source and so last year Seamus decided to grow it himself along with the help of local farmer Jim Hogan.
On the day that the 15 acre crop was ready for harvesting Stephen Robb travelled to Carlow to see if the wheat would make the grade.
Story 3 – Aileen Sheehan
With only 4% of the Irish farming population under the age of 35, 34 year old Aileen Sheehan is something of a rarity. She’s also in that select group of just 13% of female farm holders and along with all that she’s farming without owning a blade of grass to call her own.
Ella Mc Sweeney visited her on her leased dairy farm in Whitechurch in Co. Cork where she’s milking 140 cows while also managing a full time job as a teacher in the local Secondary School.
Ear to the Ground is produced by indiepics for RTÉ.