The land, as The Bull McCabe will tell you, is a part of us all and when it's taken – or given – away, the hurt left in the aftermath can be all but unbearable. On Monday's Ryan Tubridy Show, Ryan read out an email from a man who felt he'd been cheated out of his inheritance on the family farm. Overnight the prog was contacted by a lot of people who felt they were similarly affected. It was, as Ryan put it, a deluge of correspondence and obviously this is a sore point with a lot of families around the country. Enter farmer, mediator and tutor Clare O’Keeffe, who spoke to Ryan about the difficulties and challenges that can arise when it comes to farming succession.  

"Succession planning is a process, it's not just an event that one thinks about when one is in their latter years. It's a process. It needs to be done in a timely manner. I suppose the secret really is just open conversations at home around the kitchen table."

Generally speaking, Clare says, family farms are businesses best run by one person. But even families with one child are not immune from strife – it’s not unheard of for the one son or daughter in a family to set their sights on doing something other than running the family farm with their lives.

"So, that can also be a challenge in families, where the one person who will be the owner of the asset may not want to be the actual farmer, so giving them the freedom also to do something else, while they can be the owner of the farm, is another conversation that can sometimes be pushed under the mat."

Is it always the case, Ryan wondered, that succession on the family farm goes from father to son, father to son, father to son, ad infinitum? It is, Clare tells him, "the most traditional of professions". So, Ryan presents Clare with a mediation scenario: he and his fictional siblings are aghast at their father's determination to hand the family farm over to the eldest son. What are their options in this roleplay? Not much, as it turns out because "the asset is owned by your parents" and, if they're of sound mind, they can effectively do what they like with the farm.

But back to The Bull McCabe: "Another field? Another field? Jesus, you’re as foreign here as any Yank. Another field? Are you blind?" This is as true today as it was in John B Keane's stage play – it’s not just any land that's important, it's this land, and Clare is well used to hearing variations on this theme:

"Sometimes I would say, 'Well, would you consider farming somewhere else in Ireland?' Quite often some people would say, 'No, it will be on my home farm where I was reared, where my father was reared, my grandfather or grandmother.' So, there's an attachment to place."

You can hear Ryan's full conversation with Clare by going here. 

And you can find out more about Clare's work in the area of farming succession here. 

Niall Ó Sioradáin