International Year of the Woman Farmer: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-20 ============================================================ Joe Conway (IND), Cultural and Educational Panel Molaim an Aire as a bheith chomh sciobtha agus a bhí sé. The Minister was very quickly back among us. It is lovely to see him here as well. I compliment Senator Boyhan on this thought-provoking motion. I was happy to co-sign it. I acknowledge all the work that he does on behalf of farming, horticulture and fisheries. The Senator is a great colleague and many people have attested to that. I ask the House to spare a thought for women who, through the cruel hand of fate, are designated to be farmers. It happens to more than a handful of women every year. The debate tonight was enriched by a lot of personal testimony. Every Senator referred to their own background and their closeness to farming and the Minister will indulge me if I mention that the cohort of women I am talking about is the women who are thrown into farming because of the death of a husband or partner. This happened to a sister of mine when she was all of 33, with four small girls, the youngest being two and the oldest being eight. Her husband died in the sports complex in Longford playing a five-a-side football match at the age of 36. She was a nurse by profession. It is kind of ironic that hers was predominantly female profession at the time and her husband was a farmer. She was thrown into rearing a family and all the complexities of bringing up a family but also all the complexity that she was completely foreign to in relation to farming including husbandry, vets, accounts, the CAP and trying to make sense of it. Of course, there was trying to get staff who would work and then the inevitable, which happens on occasions, that women in those vulnerable situations can meet fairly unscrupulous people who can take advantage of their naivety. Anyway, as a House we should think of those women. It still goes on, sometimes at a very tender age and sometimes much more latterly, in people's existence. It is a mark of great of courage on those women farmers who, though they do not have any choice in it, if the Minister will pardon the expression, man or woman up to it and make a great job of bringing up their families and preserving the farm. I have noticed - and I noticed in her case - that they often farm with a greater sensitivity to nature and animals as well. That is probably just part of their nature. That is something I wanted to point out. The other aspect I want to advert to is that down near me in Tramore there is an agricultural college called Kildalton. Senator Clifford-Lee will know it well. It is near the Senator's ancestry. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-20/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:58+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-20