Podcasts · Science

CountryWide

RTÉ Radio 1

100 episodes

The CountryWide team feature the events, people and happenings that bring colour and life to communities, towns and villages across Ireland. Listen live Saturdays at 8am on RTÉ Radio 1.

Episodes page 1 of 2

  1. Karina Pierce

    · 9:25

    The Agriculture faculty in UCD is 100 years old this year. Philip meets their newly appointed Dean of Faculty, Professor Karina Pierce to find out what her department is doing to meet the challenges of the next 100…

  2. Hometree's "Defining Moment" for Nature

    · 13 min

    With EU funding for farming with nature in retreat is this the moment that private finance might fill the gap. Ronan Doherty has transferred his fundraising skills from the renewable energy sector to nature…

  3. LIFE Projects Under Threat

    · 9:04

    There are 52 EU funded LIFE projects currently running in Ireland with ambitious climate and environment goals. But the funding for these could be wrapped up over the course of the next two years as Europe shifts its…

  4. Poll na bPeist Rescue

    · 11 min

    The wormhole on Inis Mor is ever more popular with tourists thanks to viral cliff diving social media posts. But few are aware how dangerous it is to even walk around it. Lorna Siggins talked to everyone involved in a…

  5. Field Names

    · 8:15

    As our landscape changes, due to development, climate and new uses of land, the names of fields are being lost. Treasa Bhreathnach reports from Rahara, Co Roscommon on a project to record field names before they are…

  6. Agriculture Emissions

    · 14 min

    Ireland’s record on climate action is on course to be the worst in Europe. Why have efforts to cut farming’s greenhouse gasses come to a standstill. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  7. Jane Clarke

    · 12 min

    Poet Jane Clarke’s work is a firm favourite among farmers. Her new collection asks awkward questions of all of us about what we are allowing to happen to the natural world. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy…

  8. Rutting Season

    · 5:04

    On Hawthorn Hill Farm in Roscommon Keith Brennan contemplates the unearthly call of the amorous fallow deer See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  9. Countrywide Full Episode 10/10/26

    · 40 min

    How the seas and ocean around Ireland shape our lives and could change our future. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  10. Silicon Valley of the Sea

    · 9:40

    Prof John Bell flips Ireland's idea of itself on its head. The country is not a peripheral island on the edge of Europe. It is a large maritime nation that could become a bio-economic super power. See…

  11. Archiving Coastal Communities

    · 7:38

    The Creative Ireland visual arts project "Dunmore Through a Lens" has captured the Waterford fishing village's people and their memories. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  12. Blue Wellbeing

    · 7:50

    Surfer and Academic Dr Easkey Britton believes that both we and the ocean will benefit by adjusting our relationship with the marine world. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  13. Farming Seaweed

    · 14 min

    Gareth Murphy's company Oir Na Farraige has found a low impact way of harvesting seaweed for a range of uses that might actually protect marine ecosystems. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  14. EU Female Organic Farmer of The Year

    · 14 min

    Following her victory in the EU's most prestigious organic award we visit Kay O'Sullivan at home on Glynn Organic Farm in North Cork. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  15. Food Security: Bread

    · 26 min

    Only the tiniest fraction of the flour needed to bake the 50kg of bread we eat a year is grown and milled in Ireland, and the cost of what we import is sky rocketing. We take a look at what needs to be done to keep the…

  16. Nest Protection Officer Training Programme

    · 6:29

    Ireland's first certified Nest Protection Officer Training Programme was recently launched by Ministers Martin Heydon and Christopher O'Sullivan. It was developed by Owen Murphy and Donal Beagan of the publicly funded…

  17. Agriland/ICMSA Farmer Survey: Panel

    · 10 min

    The survey was commissioned by Agriland and the ICMSA, and it shows it isn't only older farmers who want out. One in five farmers in their late forties and early fifties, which is young in this business, say they're…

  18. Agriland/ICMSA Farmer Survey

    · 5:19

    During the week, a major new survey was published which suggests there will be an exodus of farmers in the next few years. In a comprehensive survey of Irish farmers - with 2,300 people responding across every sector…

  19. School Cycle Bus

    · 7:42

    Approx 5% of Irish children cycle to school every day. One idea trying to change that is the school cycle bus. It's a group of primary school children led by adult volunteers along a set route. Regan Hutchins joined…

  20. Natural Horsemanship

    · 5:45

    Paul Walker is well known in the business for breeding, training and trialling sheepdogs. Now the Chilean-English trainer has turned his hand to horses at the home he shares with his partner Leah Henry in Mayo. Lorna…

  21. Seeds of Inspiration

    · 7:38

    For a quarter of a century, John McKeon has been collecting seeds from the trees and hedgerows around his home near Castleblayney in Monaghan. The 75-year-old retired agricultural adviser has used them to grow more…

  22. Apple Season

    · 6:21

    If any of you have an apple tree in a park near you, on your farm or garden, you’ll notice how early the apples have appeared - very early. Con Traas's parents, Willem and Ali, came from Holland in 1967 looking for…

  23. National Ploughing Championships - Angus calves

    · 7:35

    This week, five secondary schools, from Donegal to Cork, were presented with an Aberdeen Angus calf to bring home and rear. It's all part of the Certified Irish Angus schools' competition, which asks students to do a…

  24. National Ploughing Championships - Lamb Shearing

    · 7:42

    The All-Ireland Lamb Shearing Championships took place at the Ploughing this week when Ireland’s fastest and most skilled sheep shearers - ranging from juniors upwards - were put to the test. See…

  25. National Ploughing Championships - Young Innovators

    · 9:10

    At the National Ploughing Championships, young agri start-ups had a chance to pitch for Enterprise Ireland awards, and Suzanne Campbell met three of these companies as they tried to catch the judges' attention, each…

  26. Minister Christopher O'Sullivan

    · 14 min

    Ireland sends its plan for restoring nature to Brussels, so how much public money will be allocated to it, and what will it ask? Minister for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity Christopher O’Sullivan joined us to…

  27. Sheepshead Walk

    · 8:24

    A lot of this vision of a more "open access" Ireland might seem unachievable. But there is an example of farmers opening up access to the public and everybody getting along. The Sheepshead Way was created 30 years ago…

  28. South Kerry Greenway

    · 15 min

    This morning we took a a closer look at the kind of access to the countryside that the state is actually investing in; Greenways. 350 km of Greenway has been built in the last 5 years, and there are plans to build out…

  29. 'The Pathless Land: Finding A Way Across Ireland'

    · 15 min

    Tim Hannigan is a Cornish born Travel Writer so as somebody who grew up with a right to roam the countryside, the thing about living in Ireland that he can’t get his head around is the comparatively limited access to…

  30. Donald Trump touches down in Ireland

    · 7:33

    Ahead of President Trump's arrival to Ireland, RTÉ News Correspondents Brian O'Connell, Colman O'Sullivan and Elizabeth Hearst brought us the latest updates live from this morning. See omnystudio.com/listener for…

  31. Can organic farming provide buffer against weather extremes?

    · 7:25

    Amanda Galvin is running an organic sheep and tillage enterprise not too far from Tullamore. She hasn’t dipped in to any of her winter fodder, her fields are notably greener than her neighbours and her ewes actually…

  32. Do we need more drought-resistant pasture to adapt to hot and dry weather?

    · 12 min

    The creamery Tirlan surveyed 800 of its farmers last week – and over 80% of them said that they had already fed several week’s worth of what they should be feeding in December and January. And 90% said that there was…

  33. "If this summer happens again we'll gear up and maybe spend another half a million euro on another irrigation machinery."

    · 6:47

    This week, Countrywide reporter Della Kilroy visited Hickeys farm to meet father and son Martin and Gerard Hickey and find out how this summer’s weather has affected their crops, and what it means for the future of…

  34. "There are some things we won't be able to change, so it is about adapting now for the future."

    · 14 min

    The number of farmers that have found themselves without water, or running low, or sitting on a sluggish well means that Harry and John Ellis – father and son team from Hacketstown Co Carlow are out the door with…

  35. Irish Horticulture Charter

    · 13 min

    Six of the country's biggest retailers - Aldi, Dunnes, Lidl, Marks and Spencer, SuperValu and Centra, and Tesco - have signed up to the principles of a new Horticulture Grower-Retail Charter. It arrives at a hard…

  36. Hannah Page Fox

    · 13 min

    Grangecon is in the west of Wicklow, under the hills. Hannah Page Fox lives on a sheep and Christmas tree farm in Grangecon. A year ago, with nothing much to warn her, Hannah was told she had lobular breast cancer, and…

  37. Stephen Coen

    · 9:00

    On 26th of July, 75 years of waiting ended in Croke Park, and Sam Maguire is in Mayo at last. Stephen Coen has been chasing that day since he was seventeen, but he was named to start last month's final, and before…

  38. Coffee Prices

    · 12 min

    Kate O'Sullivan is the new owner of café Pónaire in Newport, County Tipperary - a café at the front, and behind it a roastery that roasts every bean the business sells. Prices in Brazil for beans peaked early last year…

  39. Annacotty Weir in Limerick to be removed to restore natural river channel

    · 13 min

    Under the EU Nature restoration plan, Ireland must draw up an inventory of artificial barriers on its rivers and decide which of them will come out to restore at least 25,000 kilometers of free flowing rivers by 2030.…

  40. How impactful are nature-based solutions to flooding?

    · 20 min

    Dr Mary Burke, geographer at Trinity College Dublin talked about her research SloWaters project that encourages farmers to slow the flow of water off their lands during heavy rains to reduce the risk of flooding…

  41. How has hot and dry weather impacted potato farming?

    · 6:26

    Journalist Hannah Quinn Mulligan met with potato farmer Donald Tracy in Kildare whose harvest has been reduced to half due to the hot and dry weather this year. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  42. Waterford's farmhouse cheesemaker gets a new neighbour: Mark Zuckerberg

    · 4:51

    Black water valley has a new resident, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Ella McSweeney spoke with a cheesemaker who lives a stone's throw away from his new residence. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  43. Cork Community Garden

    · 7:52

    The city's food festival, Cork on a Fork, has two more days to run. Some of the best of it isn't happening in restaurants at all. Up on the northside, in Knocknaheeny and Hollyhill, there's a community garden that…

  44. Algal Bloom

    · 4:11

    It’s unfortunately become part of the summer in Ireland - reports of algal blooms on our lakes, some toxic, with county councils across the country warning us to not bathe in the water and keep dogs away. Frances Lucy…

  45. Rambling House

    · 8:29

    Every rural parish had homes where the latch was never down. They were called rambling houses, and they were a deeply held tradition in rural Ireland, helping bond communities. It’s a tradition that’s being celebrated…

  46. Uplands and Commonage

    · 24 min

    We’ll begin on the hills and it’s about commonage - land own between farmers. Roughly 400,000 hectares of farmland is held under commonage, and it can become some of the richest habitat in the country. Managing it well…

  47. Countrywide Full Episode 08/08/26

    · 47 min

    Countrywide Full Episode 08/08/26 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  48. Water Shortages (continued)

    · 9:28

    It's not only Malcolm's farm affected, it's playing out on other farms, mainly in the south and southeast. So what does this actually mean for farmers, and how do you make a farm more resilient to to extremes -…

  49. Offshore Wind Farms

    · 8:02

    Five new wind farms are waiting on planning approval in the Irish Sea and it appears that the sites line up with some of the best fishing grounds on the east coast. So it's no great surprise that fishermen are worried,…

  50. Water Shortages

    · 11 min

    In 2018, a summer drought hit Ireland hard, and farmers were counting the cost of it for months afterwards. This year, it's happening all over again. July was the driest on record, so what does this mean for dairy…

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