In 1980, when his father retired, Tom took over as farm manager and began to develop the horse work on the farm. Get the latest farming news and advice every Tuesday and Thursday.Įnter email address This field is required Sign Up It was fairly self-sufficient, growing enough corn and grass to feed the cows all year round and the herd regularly featured in cattle shows, including the spring show at the RDS. The well-known Overend sisters, Letitia and Naomi, ran a pedigree Jersey dairy herd on the farm. However, despite his in-depth knowledge of forestry, Tom was originally trained as a farm manager in the heart of Dublin city.Īirfield Trust, a 50ac farm situated in the centre of Dundrum, employed Tom's father Gerry as farm manager in the 1960s and 1970s. "Aside from the young saplings, the last thing you want to do is damage any of the standing crop," he adds.ĭamage to the bark of an older tree leaves it more susceptible to disease and subsequent death, so flexible and supple horses are less likely to accidentally cause damage. "There are thousands of small oak trees around six or eight-inches high and the horse does no damage to those trees compared to machines.
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"The forest floor here is full of small trees growing and regenerating the forest," he says. Since our carbon footprint has become so topical, few could argue that the horse is leaving a big imprint on the environment. "I could be working only 50 feet away from the trails and no-one would know unless they spotted me, so there's no noise pollution and the horses don't tear up the paths like a machine would," says Tom. Using horses for logging is far less intrusive and destructive than using massive machines. The heritage region is also strewn with walking and bike trails for the tourists and locals.
"Even a small oil leak from a tractor in an area like this would be disastrous for the eco-system," he says. "It's rocky, boggy and we have to cross a river with the timber. "The terrain here is too rough for machines," he explains.
His current job has him logging in scenic Glengarriff, where the National Parks and Wildlife Service has employed him and his eight-year-old Belgian-bred Ardenne mare to take timber from the forest. "Horses are far more manoeuvrable than big machines and they cause less damage to the environment and structure of the forest," he explains. He says horses are in demand for forestry work in areas of historical or environmental significance. Tom Nixon, a Dublin man now living in west Cork, has been building his horse logging business for the past three years. However, one man is slowly but surely starting a revolution and bringing horse logging back into vogue. Horses were once a common sight in forestry plantations across Ireland but, as with the nation's farms, they were eventually replaced by track machines and tractors.
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