Farmers as we know them may be vanishing from Ireland. In the course of their research for a new book, Turtle Bunbury and photographer James Fennell heard the stories of these six keepers of the land - before their way of life is gone
PADDY GLEESON, Born 1904. Farmer, Bodyke, Co Clare
Paddy Gleeson, a 103-year-old bachelor farmer, was a teenager during the first World War. One of his earliest memories is of Willie Redmond, then MP for East Clare, arriving in the county in August 1914 to raise a regiment of Irish Volunteers to help Belgium fight Germany. Redmond brought a banner that he hoped the men would rally under.
"It was a beautiful flag, green blazes with a harp at its centre," says Gleeson. "There were scores of dummy rifles, too, for training. But there was big opposition to the British government in the church and everywhere."
Redmond abandoned his mission and went to France, where he was killed, at Messines, in 1917. But the banner stayed in the county, and that, says Gleeson, "is the how and the why of Clare getting the name of the Banner County".
The Gleesons were cattle farmers from Six-Mile-Bridge. At the turn of the century Gleeson's father, Bartholomew, took on the pub in O'Callaghan's Mills. He soon married the mill owner's daughter, and, on May 20th, 1904, Gleeson was born. He was followed by four siblings before his mother died, in 1911. "I was nine years old when she left us, with a baby sister and all." Money was scarce, and the outbreak of war, in 1914, brought greater hardship. In October 1916 Bartholomew sold the pub and moved to New York with his two younger sons and a daughter. Gleeson, by now 14, was left behind with his other sister, to look after an elderly aunt. "She had no one to care for her, so I stopped here." Gleeson never saw his father again. "He died in New York and is buried there."
Gleeson recalls Eamon de Valera addressing the crowd in the by-election that followed Redmond's death, which he won by 2,975 votes. He would go on to represent the constituency until 1959, but de Valera was in the US when, in January 1920, the British government dispatched the Black and Tans to Ireland. Gleeson was coming home with groceries one evening when he saw a convoy outside his neighbours' home. "There must have been 20 of them or more. Black hats, tan coats. I hid up an ivy tree, and I was there from seven o'clock to 11 o'clock with my bag of groceries. That was December 19th, 1920. I heard them going, and I went over to the Hogans' house; everything was upside down."
By the time Gleeson got home the Tans were raiding the house next door to his aunt's. They came back again the following night. "They had the mother and daughter brought out of the building wearing only their nightclothes. Then they set fire to the house. We heard them going and went over to see could we do anything. At that time farmers used to kill their own pigs and store them in a barrel to season. I saved the barrel, and I saved chairs and I even saved the duck eggs. But the house was burned to the ground."
"So here I am," Gleeson says matter-of-factly. Who know the secret of his longevity? It's hardly the cigarettes he puffs, although he doesn't really drink. He never married, either. "Although maybe I'll meet someone my age soon."
MICHAEL "PATSY" FLANAGAN, Born 1924. Drummer and farmer, Bartra, Lahinch, Co Clare
Michael Flanagan looks down from the seat of his open-top tractor and says: "That's the story now, boys." In the past five minutes the 80-year-old drummer has given us his verdict on the greatest traditional musicians of the 20th century: box players, pipers, fiddlers, vocalists, flautists and all. He reels off their names like a sergeant major listing soldiers who did him proud in a war.
Flanagan is known locally as Michael Patsy, to distinguish him from all the other Michael Flanagans in Lahinch. Born to a small farming family in the south Co Clare parish of Mullagh, he accepts that his claim to be the Michael Flanagan of Lahinch would have limited success. But he is probably the Michael Flanagan of Bartra, a small beach running along Liscannor Bay where surfers roam and gulls soar. This is where the bachelor farmer has lived in a small whitewashed cottage since 1949.
The cottage is a simple homestead of yellow walls, colourful dish towels, a big drum kit and a furry cat named Tibby. "The cat will manage when the man is away," says Flanagan. "In a country house you need a cat to keep away the mice. The rats and mice that come off the strand - if you saw the size of them. Black dirty things. Nobody likes rats, and the old cat will do that job."
Musical blood flows on both sides. His father was a kinsman of Bobby Casey; his mother counted Junior Crehan and Liam Óg O'Flynn among her relatives. Flanagan turned to music in his teens. "I made a couple of tambourines at first. But I couldn't work them, so I found a good snare drum and got up with a jazz band." An Army drum major stationed in Lahinch taught him the finer points of drumming dexterity. In 1977 Flanagan succeeded Jack McDonnell as Tulla Céilí Band's drummer. In 1995 he performed with them at Croke Park, just before Clare won the All-Ireland hurling final. Each July he carries the Tulla drum to Miltown Malbay for the Willie Clancy Summer School. "I may be coming on 83, but I have a few more nights to be done yet," he says, tapping his drum with a stick. "If you don't see this drum, then you may take it they've got someone else."
PAT AND JOHN PIGGOTT, Born 1931. Farmers and accordion player, Glenbeigh, Co Kerry
"Come in, come in," says Pat Piggott, ushering us into the farm cottage where he lives with his twin, John. The rain is bucketing down, and even the dogs retreat to find shelter once they've sniffed our knees.
"It's not too often we'd have people up," says Pat as we take a seat by a fireplace. "We'd have more in the wintertime."
The cottage, which is sheltered by the Seefin Mountains, overlooks the point where the River Behy meets Dingle Bay. The nearby strand of Rossbeigh was where Oisín and Niamh took to the sea on their white horse to find new life in Tir na nÓg.
John Piggott suggests their home has been in the family for more than 200 years. It is certainly where their great-grandparents lived during the Famine. The bachelor twins were born in the cottage on a spring morning in 1931, sons to a mountain farmer who died when they were young men. Their two younger sisters also died young. After their father's death, they continued to live with their mother.
The brothers are charming, friendly and enthusiastic, eager to help in any way they can. They produce a plate of biscuits, a pot of tea, glasses of lemonade and a bottle of whiskey.
A settle, apparently as old as the house, rests in front of a roasting turf fire. A cheerful green runs throughout the house - on the window sills, the doors and the furniture. On one wall is a picture of a handsome woman cut from a calendar years ago. Beside it hangs a newspaper clipping about their friend and neighbour Pauline Bewick, the artist. A television sits discreetly in one corner of the room. "It's good for the long winter nights," says John.
We sit on green chairs and debate the size of counties and talk about the extraordinary changes to rural Ireland in the past few years.
The Piggotts are farmers. They keep cattle and sheep in a few fields around the house and have a handful of hens and ducks to provide boiled eggs for breakfast. They have always had their own milk, butter and cream. "We used to have turkeys," says John, "and the pig is gone now, too."
Like many Co Kerry farmers, the twins have a keen sense of music. Pat is a deft player of the melodeon or squeeze box.
The Piggotts, who have always been wary of cabin fever, used to take off around the surrounding countryside on their bicycles. New houses now dot the landscape. John shakes his head sadly and says that, whereas many people lived in the area during his youth, most of the new houses are holiday homes.
Billows of smoke have yellowed the whitewash around the fireplace, but the air smells vigorous and hearty. The turf came from a stretch of bog behind the cottage. They had cut it the previous spring, using the long-handled slan and pike. Pat is sad that such traditional methods for cutting, stacking and drying peat are fading away. He fears that the increased use of farm machinery will ultimately strip Ireland of every resource it has.
JOHN CODY, Born 1927. Sheep farmer, Rahanna, Co Carlow
John Cody was a great ladies' man in his prime - and still would be, given the right circumstances. He wears a striped cream V-neck, a white shirt done up to the top button, navy trousers and brown loafers. He pours us glasses of whiskey, tops them up with lemonade, prepares a brandy and ginger for himself and sits down with a big, broad grin.
Cody, who grew up on the slopes of Mount Leinster, was the youngest of seven children born to a Co Wexford sheep farmer who claimed kinship with Buffalo Bill Cody.
By the time Cody came of age, his elder brothers and sisters had fled rural Ireland to seek new lives in Britain and the US. Cody duly took over his father's land - and the flock of sheep that came with it. Since then his life has revolved around maintaining the farm. He became an adept shepherd, earning the respect of his peers as a sheepshearer of great precision. One winter he herded 300 ewes to shelter during a particularly harsh snowstorm.
He lives alone in a small cottage on the slopes of the Blackstairs. Mount Leinster rises in front of his home, the rocky green landscape broken by stone walls, isolated trees and mountain sheep.
On the summit stands a 100m television mast that RTÉ erected in 1961. As a beacon for the age of television, the mast swiftly became a focal point for debate. Many admired it, some were in awe and others were determined to fell it. In the spring of 1962 Cody was appointed night watchman to defend the mast against saboteurs. It was a role that sat easily with his shepherding duties.
Cody recalls standing on the summit of Mount Leinster on clear nights when the moon was full. To the east, across the Irish Sea, he could just make out the mountains of Wales, silhouetted against the horizon. Had fate dealt a different hand, he realised, chances were he would have crossed the sea himself.
CON RIORDAN, Born 1912. Farmer, Glenbeigh, Co Kerry
Con Riordan's home lies in the lush valley of Glenbeigh, not far from the farmstead of the Piggott twins. Like many Co Kerry farmers, he had lived here all his life.
The cottage was thatched in his youth; it was given a slate roof a few years ago by a thoughtful nephew. The same nephew looks after the farm now, doing what Riordan spent most of his 94 years doing - "mowing the fields, planting potatoes, cutting turf, looking after the cattle and sheep".
The mechanisation of turf came too late for Riordan. "Every sod I ever turned was turned with a spade. And when you're gone past 90 years you've turned a few sods in your time."
Riordan was one of five children. Their mother died when the children were young; their father raised them with help from their mother's family. Riordan's only brother, who went to work in the coal mines of England, was killed when a pit collapsed. "The sisters are all gone now, too."
As his 95th birthday looms he is philosophical but restless. "I can't do a lot of work at my age. When you've nothing to do you can feel the day. But, sure, we still have plenty of time."
• These profiles are from Vanishing Ireland, by James Fennell and Turtle Bunbury, published by Hodder Headline Ireland, €30