Fiona Kennedy was only 11 months old when her father died, leaving her mother, Rosemary, to work the family farm near Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary. Yesterday in Dublin, Fiona, now 11, ran and hugged her mother who had just won the National Farm Woman of the Year Award, sponsored by the Bank of Ireland.
Ms Kennedy, whose two sons are now adults, won the top prize for her business acumen in managing the farm and her ambition and foresight in developing skills through education and training.
"I just had to get on with it when my husband died. My neighbours and family were very supportive," she said as she accepted a cheque for £3,000. Earlier the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, had praised the role of farming women and said the economist's definition meant that much of rural and farm women's work was not officially acknowledged.
However, he was looking forward to the findings of the advisory committee on the role of women in agriculture within a few weeks and he hoped to implement quickly as many of the recommendations as possible.
The chairwoman of the Irish Farmers' Association's national farm committee, Ms Betty Murphy, said the contribution of farm women to the successful running of the farm business was more important than ever, given the present labour shortages.
Many women, she said, were at the heart of running farms today and their role in managing, administering and day-to-day running had become increasingly central to the viability of many Irish farms when labour was becoming hard to find.
She said about 13,000 women were farmers, and on another 50,000 farms the wife's work on the farm accounted for about a quarter of the family's labour.
"As things stand, the full participation of farm women in the farm workforce is not properly recognised and encouraged and the Minister's report must address areas of discrimination against women farmers in areas such as personal finance, economic and legal matters," she said.
The regional winners were: (South) Ms Elizabeth Lane, Co Cork; (West) Ms Margaret Ferguson, Co Donegal; (East) Ms Marie Lyons, Birr; (North) Ms Alison Harbison, Co Derry, and the Alternative Enterprise winner was Ms Mary Gannon, Co Galway, for developing and marketing her own brand of cheese.