Donal Hickey: Here's how to take part in traditional Burren winterage walk

Winterage — where cattle move to the uplands for winter grazing — plays a vital role in protecting one of our most biodiverse landscapes.

Thu, 09 Oct, 2025 - 14:52

Donal Hickey

The Burren, in Clare and parts of County Galway, has been setting a template for how farming, nature and action on climate change can all flourish together.

An ancient farming tradition, called winterage, will be celebrated in the area during the upcoming bank holiday weekend, October 24-26, with a comprehensive programme of guided walks, workshops, local food tasting, storytelling, music and the traditional Burren Winterage Cattle Drive.

Cattle Drive 2021. Picture: Willie O'Reilly. Organised by the Burrenbeo Trust and supported this year by ACRES Burren Aran and FBD Trust, this much-loved festival celebrates the farming practice of moving cattle onto Burren uplands for winter grazing

Basically, winterage is a custom whereby cattle are moved to the uplands for winter grazing — in contrast to the usual practice elsewhere of bringing animals to the lowlands, and indoors when needed, for the most inclement time of year.

Organised by Burrenbeo Trust, the festival highlights the vital role winterage plays in protecting one of our most biodiverse landscapes.

Trust chief executive, Áine Bird, says: “The Burren Winterage Weekend is a celebration of the agricultural heritage in the Burren and by extension an opportunity to shine a light on nature-friendly farming practices across Ireland."

In summertime, the Burren’s upland plants and flowers can thrive in the absence of grazing cattle. However, in winter, when plants are dormant, cattle can eat the grasses and other vegetation which, if left ungrazed, would gradually smother the spring/summer flora and allow scrub to encroach.

And if you’re concerned about livestock being exposed to the cold of winter, rest easily! Limestone in the uplands stores heat from the summer sun, later releasing it slowly and offering comfortable lie-down areas for the animals. The heat also extends the grass-growing season.

People attending the Burren festival are invited to join a local farming family in herding their cattle to the winterage pastures. Two cattle drives, and the majority of events, are being hosted this year on a farm in Bouleevin, Boston, Tubber, managed by Frank, Mary and Frank McCormack Jnr.

In the run up to the Winterage Weekend, a series of Farming for Nature webinars is being organised from Monday to Thursday (October 20–23, 8-9pm), hosting online discussions with farmers in Ireland and Britain on nature-friendly farming.

The Burren Food Fayre, on Sunday October 26, will also offer a chance to all attendees to ‘taste the Burren’ through samplings from some of the best of local food producers.

Then there’s the launch of a book on the successful Hare’s Corner project, inspired by people’s actions for nature.

In times past, a hare’s corner was a section of farmland deemed unsuitable for cultivation and, therefore, left undisturbed. For the past few years, Burrenbeo has been urging people to actively turn such land over to nature and wildlife, with more than 1,000 such projects now underway.

The Burren: a magical place — but with eco pressures such as goat grazing