In 1990, Tom Hennigan realised he could not support his growing family on 10 acres of poor land in the townland of Killasser in Co Mayo, and he needed to do something else. However, he did not want to leave the farm, which had been in the family for 200 years.
He had always been interested in local history and archaeology. "I surveyed every field in Killasser, and the results were published by the RTC in Galway, edited by Bernard O'Hara. I found two court tombs, wedge tombs, crannogs, iron smelterings and field systems similar to the Ceide Fields," he said.
On a visit to Newgrange he also visited Redhills farm, which is open to the public, and realised the farmer there "had no cell counts, no mastitis, and he had his money". Along with Mr Peter Casby, who taught in Davitt College in Castlebar, he drew up a business plan for a heritage centre and sent it to a cousin who taught business studies in Galway.
He obtained planning permission to convert his piggery, which housed 250 pigs, into a museum and heritage centre, and then sought funding. This came from the Leader programme in Kiltimagh, which offered 50 per cent funding.
Local financial institutions were less supportive. While this part of counties Mayo and Sligo has rivers and lakes and is popular with fishermen, there is no coast, and tourism has bypassed the nearby towns of Foxford, Swinford, Charlestown and Tubbercurry. There was no money available from the local bank for a tourism project.
But he pressed ahead, and with credit from local builders' suppliers and his own labour, carried out the conversion. He also restored the old family house to what it had been like 100 years ago, locating the original flagstones and seeking the advice of old people in the area about how to lay them.
The centre opened in 1998, and is now averaging 5,000 visitors a year.
The term "heritage centre" is a catch-all which can cover anything from a small museum to the most kitsch re-creation of an imaginary past.
However, what makes Tom Hennigan's different is his deep knowledge of the history and culture of the area, his enthusiasm for it, and personal engagement with the hundreds of implements and artefacts he has assembled from friends and neighbours over the years. Pointing to the tin cans and mugs made by Travellers up to the 1960s, he said: "That bucket was made by Terry Maughan of Ballyhaunis in 27 minutes."
He re-created a shoemaker's workshop in one corner of his museum. "That was Jimmy Higgins's in Swinford. I used to go into his shop and help him when I skived off from school. His nephew gave it to me when he died."
The house is the traditional three-room cottage, with an alcove off the kitchen in which his parents slept. One bedroom was for the grandparents, the other for the children. Furniture, clothes and religious ornaments from the early part of the century have re-created the home of his childhood.
Three families of pigs live free range on the farm, along with hens, geese, a cow, a calf, a pony and a donkey. He has just entered into partnership with the Sisters of Mercy to farm vegetables organically.
All of this has been achieved with no State help and with no external support except from the local Leader programme at the outset. He has no advertising budget and no promotion in tourist literature. Yet the volume of visitors continues to grow, mainly through word of mouth, and they have included the German and Austrian ministers for agriculture, the American ambassador and his wife, and Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond.
The centre is signposted from the Swinford-Foxford road, and Tom Hennigan can be contacted at 094-52505.