'It was hard to see your whole life's work taken away, sheep heavy with lambs taken from us'

Liam Woods (61) inherited his 235-acre farm at Castletowncooley, Riverstown, Co Louth, from his father, who was a farmer, Carlingford butcher and county councillor. His wife, Irene, is well-known locally for her landscape and portrait art. They have four children, two of whom live at home: Suzanne (24) and Liam (26), who worked on the family farm for two years before becoming a tyre-fitter in Dundalk.

The Outbreak

Liam Woods: "When the outbreak in the Cooleys was confirmed, I was in the Ballymascanlon hotel because the Department of Agriculture had a centre there since the outbreak in Meigh, Co Armagh. We were seconded in to go through lists of farmers in the one-kilometre exclusion zone in the Republic, so some sheep had already been culled in this area before the Proleek outbreak. The minute I heard where the outbreak was, I knew I was gone, as my farm was contiguous to the Rice farm."

Irene Woods: "All the animals - cattle or sheep - had to be kept wherever they were (in fields or sheds) when the outbreak occurred, so you had to continue feeding them. Some farmers gave free silage to farmers in the Cooley Peninsula during that time. The IFA set up a unit in the Riverstown Mill (a refurbished grain mill with a restaurant) with representatives from the Department of Social Welfare, the North-Eastern Health Board, an IFA advice centre and a counselling unit. And every evening during the crisis, there was a briefing session so that local people could know what was happening."

The Cull

Liam Woods: "I had to notify neighbours and tell them what days to take their sheep for killing. It was a difficult job and a time for people to stand together. We were lucky, though, to have the former Anglo-Irish meat plant in Ravensdale, Co Louth, where we could bring our animals. We were in a 'State of Emergency'; it was war against foot-and-mouth. Cattle-mart managers were taken in to buy up stock to help the Department of Agriculture vets."

Irene Woods: "The animals were killed on the farms in the one-kilometre zone of the outbreak, but the rest of the animals were taken to Ravensdale for killing."

The Impact

Irene Woods: "The foot-and-mouth crisis was like a big black cloud hanging over us. I look back on that time as a dark, dismal time.

"It was hard to see your whole life's work taken away and sheep heavy with lambs being taken away from us."

Liam Woods: "There were people who didn't have sheep [but who made compensation claims] who should have been taken to task. However, mistakes can be made: farmers can have sheep on outlying farms. This was the first time the Department of Agriculture, the vets and the Garda∅ were dealing with this situation. I think the quietest way is always the best way of dealing with this."

The Community

Irene Woods: "It has divided the community. When a crisis hits an area, it can have terrible repercussions. People have been traumatised, and this is one of the ways it shows. I feel very sad that this situation has arisen. With family farming under threat, we needed the strongest organisation ever to fight our battles. Splinter groups only get in the way. It is a terrible thing in a time of crisis to divide people and have neighbour against neighbour. The very people we helped during the crisis would hardly look at you now. Before this happened, Cooley people worked together and stuck together. There is a Carlingford and District Sheepbreeders Association and everybody was involved. There is an annual sheep show and sales and dance held in conjunction with the Carlingford Oyster Festival. Neither went ahead this year but we still hold our meetings. It's very important that we don't look back."

Liam Woods: "On a wider community level, it was incredible the amount of letters and phone calls and cards that came into the advice centre in Riverstown Mill. People in places like Donegal and Mayo were so sympathetic and so thankful that we were able to contain the disease in this area."

Getting back to work

Liam Woods: "I've been in a couple of marts since, and I didn't see anything as good as I wanted and the prices were exorbitant. I feel prices will come down when England comes back into the market. I'll be a cattle farmer for a while, and will wait until I can get the right sheep. We certainly won't go back into keeping 800 sheep. I'll be looking at my assets and see if I can let some of the land. I can go to Galway for the weekend now. We had our first continental holiday ever this year, and I was in Canada in June. Teagasc and F┴S have set up some task forces since the outbreak - one was on organic farming. There is another project I'm involved with looking into the possibility of clearing the bracken from the commonage areas on the mountains to make them more amenable to tourists and to give sheep a clearer passage."