Farmers from Limerick, Tipperary and Cork have been working together to rescue sheep trapped for days in snow drifts up to 5 metres deep on the slopes of the Galtee Mountains.
Anne Cunningham Drake, who lives in the Ballyhoura Mountains west of Mitchelstown, said her brothers, Tom, John and William, and Tom’s son, Billy, have spent the past week digging out their own sheep and those of their neighbours from huge drifts of snow.
“I’m snowed in here in the Ballyhouras since Saturday but it’s worse over on the Galtees and at my home place at Knocknascrow in Kilbehenny, they’ve got huge drifts of snow, particularly as you go up the higher ground on Galteemore, which is 918m above sea level,” she said.
“My brothers are sheep farmers and when it started snowing on Saturday, the sheep huddled in hollows for shelter but of course the wind started blowing the snow in on top of them and my brothers and my nephew have been out since Sunday searching for lost sheep.
“They’ve been going out with their sheepdogs, and when the dogs get a scent of a sheep, they start barking and scratching so the boys start digging with their shovels. They’re finding sheep alive at depths of five, 10, even 15ft and pulling them out.
“They are mountain sheep and are very resilient but it’s still hard to believe that they would survive at those depths for four and five days.”
She said her mother Nora said the last time things were as bad on the Galtees was more than 60 years ago.
“That was back in 1963 and the snow stayed on the ground until St Patrick’s Day and she remembers them digging sheep out alive after 15 days under the snow, so that’s giving great hope to my brothers and their neighbours, who are all pitching in to help each other.
Ms Cunningham Drake said farmers all along the Galtees are helping each other, from Kilbehenny and Skeheenarinky over to Aherlow and back to Anglesboro, as they work to save the thousands of sheep that graze on Galtymore and Galtybeg and other slopes.
The snow is too deep to go up the mountains on their quad bikes, so once they find sheep alive, they put them on their backs and carry them down from the upper slopes, she said. From there, they can transport them on quad bikes to safety.
“They’re euphoric when they pull an animal out alive and they are hoping now for a slow thaw – they don’t want a fast thaw because a fast thaw could lead to floods and landslides that would wash away the sheep who are due to lamb in April, so they are praying for a slow thaw.”
Milder weather conditions are expected over the weekend as the bitterly cold Arctic air mass that has been affecting the country moves away. Met Éireann weather warnings were lifted on Friday morning. Gardaí have, however, warned motorists to still be aware of dangerous conditions, including black ice, on the roads.
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