Tag Archives: Joseph Woulfe

Joseph Woulfe believes the energy crisis means we must continue to burn turf   EVERYONE in our family visits the bog almost every year. It’s our pilgrimage in some ways. it has been done for generations – to use what nature offers in our locality to heat us through the winter period. I remember my late father, Charles, building a special timber wheelbarrow to bring the sle’an turf from the bank and carefully laying the sods out to dry in the summer sunshine at Jack at Rita Moroney’s Bog near Mullagh. On the way home from a hard day’s work, we would be given a treat (or perhaps you could call it a bribe) of ice cream at Sexton’s Shop in Mullagh or the Crosses of Annagh. Over time, we moved to a more mechanised bog system in Kilmihil where the Coughlan family use a hopper. In primary school, we learned all about fossil fuels, how they grew and, over …

ENNISTYMON on a wet Monday in January. Cold and damp, the scene is rather grim and the town is Martin Conway’s base but it is here that Joseph Woulfe will try and gain a few number one votes today. He says he has been trying to promote his campaign since last year, and once the election was called he started calling to people’s homes and businesses. A part-time farmer who chaired Beef Plan in Clare, he also works as a barber and says the interaction involved in that job is standing to him now, and he enjoys meeting voters. “I find it very easy, I’ve no problem in the world doing it, I’d do it all year around. I’m used to meeting people, that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 20 years, meeting people, talking to people and communicating with them. You build up that trust and that connection.” Some candidates, veterans of politics, campaign at great speed, getting …

CLARE beef suckler farmers are rowing in behind a national drive that would see them achieve at least a 10% saving on major annual outgoings, as well as a similar increase on factory prices. “There is stronger bargaining power in big numbers. In County Meath they have successfully trialled a system where they are buying their farm inputs at reduced rates because the are forming agri buying groups. That’s the model were are striving for in Clare and it would be invaluable for the small producer,” said Clare Beef Plan spokesman, Joseph Woulfe. Mr Woulfe said they have more than 800 farmers signed up to Beef Plan in Clare and with more than 4,300 with suckler herds in the county, there is scope for a lot more members. “We need more farmers on board to strengthen our hand For example, in normal circumstances, a farmer might pay €1,000 for diesel for machinery and household kerosene in the same delivery. However, …