"Where's your grave Martin?"
As questions go, it is an odd one.
Odder still the reply: "It's up there, around 100 yards on the left."
But the story of Martin Neary and his desire to be buried on the land in Co Mayo that he farmed for decades makes the above exchange make a little more sense.
In 2015, the 78-year-old farmer won an appeal to An Bord Pleanála, after being initially denied permission to build a private burial plot on his land.
The approval left him thinking about what would happen to the rest of his farm after he died.
After weighing up the options, the farm has been transformed into a woodland park, after Mr Neary donated it to the community.
His only stipulation is that the lands, near Swinford, must not be sold or redeveloped.
The 39-acre site will be known as the Martin Neary Woodland Park.
"I enjoyed working on the land over the years and I thought, why not be buried on it?
"I have a site picked out, with a big flag for a headstone, which has nothing written on it yet!" laughed Mr Neary.
"I applied for forestry because I knew it couldn't be farmed if my grave was on the land.
"I wanted the forest and contacted the Western Forestry Co-Op and they planted thousands of trees on the land."
Mr Neary, who is a bachelor, said none of his cousins would be interested in farming the land in the future and he said he had had no complaints about his decision.
His donation was hailed today as "a savage gesture" by Peter Gill, Park Superintendent with Mayo County Council.
The local authority will oversee the maintenance of the forest in the years ahead.
Mr Gill outlined how biodiversity and environmental protection were at the top of Mr Neary’s wish list for the development and said all the aims in this regard would be achieved.
Marina Conway, of the Western Forestry Co-Op, said she had never seen anything like the generosity displayed by the landowner. Since she started working on the project, more than 39,000 native trees have been planted on the site.
In glorious spring sunshine today, friends and neighbours gathered to salute the donation and thank one man for a decision that will ripple around the area for generations to come.
