Dropouts who changed things for the better

YOUR columnist Malachi O’Doherty (Irish Examiner, December 8) makes the interesting assertion that fear of nuclear annihilation “explains the irresponsible ‘60s” more effectively than other social theories.

In this context, he mentions dropouts who bought “cottages and goats in Kerry and Donegal”.

I think Mr O’Doherty is being flippantly dismissive of many people from Britain — and mainland Europe — who forsook foreign suburban surroundings in the 1960s (and the ‘70s and ‘80s for good measure) in order to make new, rugged and precarious lives for themselves on small holdings in the periphery of rural Ireland.

I have come across several rural settlers of this non-national kind during my professional travels in the west and north-west of Ireland.

I believe the majority of them — from Britain, Belgium, Germany and elsewhere — made serious efforts to live creatively in their chosen localities.

Consider:

1. They rehabilitated derelict cottages.

2. They grew organic vegetables using polythene tunnels.

3. They introduced new varieties that locals had never dreamed of growing.

4. They participated in implementing group water schemes.

5. They helped to set up farmers’ markets.

6. They opened alternative food and commodity stores, organic farming education centres and initiated FÁS-supported training courses.

8. They promoted broadleaf afforestation among groups and individuals.

9. They sent their children to local schools that previously suffered dwindling enrolments.

10. They produced magazines and newsletters promoting practical ideas on agriculture, environment and rural resettlement.

11. They introduced arts and crafts to several localities.

12. They produced goats’ cheese — an important food substitute for certain people with food allergies.

Garreth Byrne

10 Woodlands Ave

Dromahair

Co Leitrim.