Earlier this month, a group of farmers and contractors based in Co Clare sat down together for an unusual meeting.
The heads of the Clare branches of the Irish Farmers Association and the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) decided to come together – without precedent – to meet 20 farming contractors who were facing dire increases in their costs.
Michael O’Dwyer, a dairy farmer based near Ennis who is the chair of the Clare ICMSA, was startled by what he could see on the contractors’ faces.
“It was fear,” he says. “I could see that they were afraid of what was in front of them.”
READ MORE
According to O’Dwyer, contractors provide a service “like no other” to farmers.
“You’d get an agricultural contractor in Co Clare quicker than you’d get a doctor,” he says.
A decision made by a foreign government more than 5,000km to the west of Co Clare to start a war 5,000km to the east had left ashen-faced Irish agricultural workers wondering how they were going to afford to work.
This existential financial threat, right at the beginning of this year’s busy farming season, came on top of existing pressures that farmers and contractors had already been feeling.
Leaving aside the new threat to livelihoods, O’Dwyer estimates that he is already down €300 a day alone from a depreciation in milk prices – a situation that is “not sustainable”, he says.
Soon, TDs started to hear worrying tales of agri-contractors who had seen their weekly bills for diesel rocket from €4,000 to about €7,600.
Within the Department of Agriculture, there was a sense that something had to be done. Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon was trying to set up a new scheme for contractors – the first of its kind – but he needed to secure sign-off under State aid rules.
The dismay of contractors turned to anger.
Back on his farm in Ennis, O’Dwyer was too busy to take part in the protests and blockades that followed. But he looked from a distance at the protests and the Government scrambling to respond, and thought: “Good.”
“The reality of the situation is people have been ignored for too long,” he says.
Within the Department of Agriculture, there is a feeling the events of the last week have inflicted serious harm on the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael Coalition’s standing among rural voters.
The hope within the Government is that the next election is far enough away for some trust to be earned back through bigger projects like an improved deal under the Common Agricultural Policy, the EU scheme that supports farmer incomes and ensures food security with funding of almost €400 billion from 2021 to 2027 across the bloc.
[ Fuel protests reveal flawed relationship between farms, fertilisers and foodOpens in new window ]
But the nightmare for backbench TDs, including those who rely on a rural voter base, is that this anger from rural voters towards the Government did not just ignite last week; it has been burning for years.
Some politicians caught a glimpse of it earlier this year when Larry Murrin came under pressure from farmers to stand down as chair of State body Bord Bia over his company, Dawn Farms, importing small quantities of Brazilian beef.
One TD describes how, when attending a public meeting on the same matter, they could feel the unpopularity of their own Government in the room.
“The antipathy towards Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael was unlike anything seen since the 2008 to 2011 period. It was palpable. And in some instances, I think you could describe it as palpable hatred,” says the TD.
Where could that depth of ill-feeling have come from?
The view among farming groups, TDs and current and former Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael grassroots voters is mixed and nuanced.
Among disenchanted Fine Gael-supporting farmers, some point to the change in leadership from Enda Kenny to Leo Varadkar as the start of a disconnect between the rural base and party headquarters.
For Fianna Fáil voters, few can identify a precise point in time when relations started to sour but the sense of disenchantment is strong.
One agri-food expert, who has experience dealing with successive governments (and did not want to be named), says it is down to a lack of identification with the two main political parties.
“Small farmers used to look at Fianna Fáil and see something of themselves in the party, and big farmers used to look at Fine Gael and see something of themselves in the party,” the industry source says.
“Now they can’t see anything.”
[ IFA deputy president: ‘I’m not sure God would open the door to me right away’Opens in new window ]
The amount of public support for the protests has been noted in the Government, with some concern about how willing farmers and other rural voters were to endorse a movement that included some troubling rhetoric and controversial leaders.
“They needed to make people hate us, and they made a right go at that last week,” one Minister says.
Some of the protesters’ thinking was made clear at a meeting on the fuel campaign in Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim.
Spokesman for the protesters, farming contractor Chris Duffy, was challenged by local independent councillor Eddie Mitchell, who asked why demonstrators wouldn’t blockade American multinationals as the US was responsible for the war that had driven up prices.
Duffy responded angrily, saying: “You can stand outside Microsoft anytime you want, with your Free Palestine sign ... We’ve a problem in this country, people will wave any flag bar an Irish flag.”
Another Fianna Fáil heave that wasn’t
Farmers themselves and some of their lobby groups do not believe it is accurate to assume support for the blockades will translate into support for policies espoused by some of the protests’ spokespeople – prominent figures in the demonstrations have shared anti-immigration and climate change sceptical content online.
One person points out that Duffy and fellow spokesman James Geoghegan are not new to protesting. Both were active in demonstrations in 2019, 2020 and 2022 – all of which failed to earn broader public support.
Farmers traditionally work in co-operative models, and have been shown to tolerate controversial and unpopular ideas after consultation, sources in the Department of Agriculture point out. An example cited was the new TB scheme announced in 2025. It faced a backlash from farmers who said it put a greater burden on them. But the Government believes that despite the initial criticism, farmers have adapted to, and tolerated, if not fully supported, the scheme.
Hardline and militant protesting tactics were backed in this instance, but, according to farmers like O’Dwyer, the blockades were born from a sense of frustration at not being able to get the Government’s attention.
“At least we were getting something. And it hadn’t been for the want of trying.”
