Area: Cahir
Started: August 1948
Finished: May 1949
Poles used: 1268
Line used (km): 109
Premises connected: 228
The figures above were sourced from our REO News magazine. Click interactive map to find out more on what the figures mean. The map above shows the area boundary and is from a digitised version of the original map used during the scheme.
Progress and tradition at Cuckoo Hill Farm near Cahir from REO News, October 1960:
This digital scan from the REO News displays the following text:
"Progress and Tradition at Cuckoo Hill
By Maxwell Sweeney
Overcoming Gravity
If you told James Heffernan, of Cuckoo Hill, near Cahir, that he owned a model farm he would probably laugh at you! But if you told him that he had a good farm I'm sure he would be pleased and rightly, for Cuckoo Hill is a good farm, three generations of Heffernans have made it so. But, in a number of ways, Mr. Heffernan's farm is a model because to the farming tradition of his forebears he has brought a progressive spirit. About one-third of the 340 acres at Cuckoo Hill is under tillage, including new grass; there's three acres of beet, and talking of beet led to talk of the value of dried pulp as a feeding-stuff and to the value of molasses in making silage. John Heffernan added something more to this talk about molasses, he believes in an egg-cupful in each feed for his bloodstock; and then, as we walked across the concrete apron of the yard to the stabling he talked of the value of the Gowla Horse Conditioner, another Sugar Company product. Then, as he opened a door he switched on a light: that was something I was to notice wherever we went in the buildings at Cuckoo Hill, plenty of light switches, no fumbling about in the dark.
Bloodstock
James Heffernan talked horses: there was the Rose of Montrose, dam of five winners including one in Venezuela; over here a filly by Precipitic, which stands at the National Stud, and here a filly by Panaslipper out of Green Tipperary. And there a fine sturdy farm horse, with noble studbook lineage, that's pulled the plough and the harrow on many a day, stood quietly by while Paddy Hally used an electric clipper to trim its mane.
Both James Heffernan and Paddy Hally were enthusiastic about the electric clipper which is primarily used on the farm for the shearing of sheep; Cuckoo Hill maintains 50 ewes at the present time, apart from 150 head of cattle and a few breeding sows. It's a good mixed farm.
Grooming Made Easy
A Modern Dairy
Paddy Hally has been 20 years on the farm, and I heard of this long service tradition with these lands again in meeting some of the other six permanent workers on the staff. Mick Dillon is a farrier by trade but he has been 14 years at Cuckoo Hill and was working in the dairy when I met him: an attested herd is being built up. Milking, as any visitor to this farm would expect, is done by machine, an Alfa-Laval operated by electric power, with a Burco boiler, electrically heated, in the dairy to provide hot water.
The problem of water supplies, which troubles so many farmers, has been solved by Mr. Heffernan by the installation of an Everite pump: it not only supplies the farmyard, the house and the dairy, but also seven tanks out in the fields. There's nearly a mile of plastic piping delivering water from the pump out to the points where it is needed, and Mr. Heffernan is an enthusiast for the pump and for the piping.
Grain Safeguarded
Over beside the grain store an A.E.T. grain drier was installed: the concrete base for it was built by a local man, and at the output end a Mayrath auger grain lift raised the grain, with up to 6 per cent. of moisture taken out of it by the electric drier, up to the loft. Here electricity was doing another job, driving the cleaner which was being loaded by James Whelan, a member of the third generation of his family to work at Cuckoo Hill.
Across the yard and a look in the house for rearing chicks, an infra-red brooder taking care of the job; and there was electric heat, too, for the young bonhams. Here was a farmer who was making as much use as possible of the rural electrification scheme, and he had seen that plenty of plugs were provided in the farm buildings to provide points for operating any machinery it might be necessary to drive without having to "make-do".
Water in Plenty
This was the sort of farm it was a pleasure to visit; as we walked back to the farmhouse, where a cooker and a washing-machine both use power from the farm's supply line, there was the swish of water as the milking house was hosed down. It's great to have plenty of water for a job like that, and the pump was taking care of the problem, just as James Heffernan and Mrs. Heffernan, the President of Macra na Feirme in Cahir, and his sister, Miss Angela Heffernan, took care of the other problems of the farm, by applying modern methods to doing the traditional jobs of Cuckoo Hill, the jobs that are to be found, and must be done, on every farm.
THE EVIL ONE
A man caught a boy in his garden stealing apples and handed him over to the police. As it was the boy's first offence, the magistrate let him off, but told him never to yield to such temptation again, adding: "You should have flown from the evil one."
“I tried to, sir,” replied the boy, “but he caught me before I could get through the hole in the hedge.”"