Following your dreams all the way to the Good Life

Fordstown couple rejected the offerings of the Celtic Tiger and a life trapped by the commute to achieve their ambition of living on the land just as they had experienced as children. That bravery and vision paid off for the Currans of Fordstown and, as they tell JIMMY GEOGHEGAN, they've never looked back

Back in 2002 Fiona Fox and John Curran decided to embark on a business venture that was then considered unusual to say the least. Unusual and unconventional but hugely courageous.

They decided to purchase their own farm and build it up bit by bit, acre by acre, year by year. They decided to do that because that was their dream. That was the way they wanted to live; on the land and close to nature.

"We were told when we set out first that we were mad," she recalls. "Mad, like why would you want to do that? The building boom was just taking off, yet we were on the cusp of doing something different. John could have gone to Dublin and earned good money I could have stayed in work and done the same.

"I remember during the Celtic Tiger years going for an interview for a job and all they wanted to know was: Would I take the job? How much did I want? I just didn't want to end up in a situation where I would have to drive to Dublin every day, running up and down the M3 and trying to beat the traffic to get in and out of the city. I knew that wasn't for me."

In the 1970s the BBC aired a programme called 'The Good Life.' It was about a couple who rejected the relatives riches of the city life for a calmer, back-to-nature existence of the country life and Fiona and John Curran (they were married in 2006) have opted to do the same.

They are well known in the local farming community with John Curran, who also has a fencing firm, is the chairman of the Meath IFA while Fiona has just recently taken over chair of the IFA's Farm Family Committee. Both are committed too the organisation - and the farming way of life. The good life.

FAMILY

These days the Currans operate a 60 hectare organic farm from on their base in Fordstown. They rear cattle and sheep, again organically, and grow all sorts of vegetables that makes them pretty close to self-sufficient. In the autumn time they also ramp up their turkey operation for the Christmas market, again the birds are produced organically.

Fiona and John are also helped on the farm by their family of three girls - teenagers Mary, Anna and Lucy. "We live off the land as much as we can ourselves , we grow as much as we can ourselves, fruit and vegetable and potatoes," explains Fiona.

"The girls are happy to help out, it's not like they are doing something they don't know about. They know how to plant spuds and onions, carrots. We were lucky in that John always had a garden, we even, on a small scale, grow peas, parsnips, carrots, beetroot."

The Currans have overcome many challenges in their quest to make their holding viable. They have overcome innumerable obstacles and taken on incalculable knotty, irritating problems. They've simply had to in order to make their venture work; to turn their hopes and aspirations into something tangible and real. The good life can be, at times, a hard life too, they know that. Problems of one kind or another are never far away.

On the day the Meath Chronicle spoke to Fiona a swan had arrived and was hanging around the place. Should she leave it there or what? That was at the lower end of the problem scale but over the last 19 years of so they have grappled with far more serious issues - and none was more serious than in 2008 when Fiona, who was pregnant with Lucy, fell seriously ill. So ill that mother and child were very fortunate to make it through.

"Lucy was born at 26 weeks, weighting 810 grams and that was a huge stress," recalls Fiona. "We thought we were under stress before, and we were but in a different way. When there is someone sick in the house it's a totally different ball game.

"Lucy needed so much caring because she was born so prematurely. I developed Pre-eclampsia (a pregnancy complication characterised by high blood pressure) and it was a life or death situation. I was rushed to hospital in Dublin, they told us the baby had a 50-50 chance of making it but the hand of God was with us, I'm a firm believer in that. Lucy turned out to be perfect. We were so lucky. Now she's a feisty teenager who keeps you on your toes!"

COUNTRY QUEEN

Both Fiona and John grew up in farming backgrounds - so it wasn't a case of going blindly into a venture when they decided to buy their own farm back in 2002. Fiona grew up on a farm in Nobber, John on a holding on the Navan side of Kells. They met at the Country Blue Jeans Festival in Athboy and discovered they shared the same outlook; the same love of country life. They were fully aware of the joys of that kind of life - as well as the trials and tribulations.

"John worked for a local dairy farmer, I studied science and I was working in Dublin when we met. I liked city life but I knew I always wanted to come back to the country, to settle in the country. We were both the eldest in our families, I'm the eldest of five, John is the eldest of six," adds Fiona.

"We spent much of each Thursday scrutinising the Farmers' Journal looking out for pieces of land that might be suitable to purchase and eventually we found this farm in Fordstown. We went to auction and bought it and we've added bits and pieces to it since."

The couple had to take on "a substantial bank loan" to acquire the farm that also included a house. They were helped along by an appetite for hard work, willingness to somehow make things happen sprinkled with a sizeable chunk of youthful optimism. "We were young at the time and we thought, sure, look if it doesn't work out we can sell it on, start again, that was the motto, keep going and we'll pay for it somehow. We'll make it work somehow."

They started off farming sheep and sucklers conventionally but struggled to get the returns they wanted or needed - and within a few years they decided to go down the organic route.

It means a lot of work but it also means a better return for what they produce. "We were able to get a better price by going organic and that is the main thing. We are getting more than we would get for conventional beef or sheep. We produce organic turkeys at Christmas and grow oats for Flahavans on a contract basis also," adds Fiona. It has meant that much of the loans have been paid back.

As well as finding a form of farming that was actually profitable, Fiona and John were also determined to maintain a comfortable, secure environment for their three daughters. That has meant Fiona filling the role of a stay-at-home mother; a guiding force who is always there when her children need her most. Holding the fort.

She feels the desire to provide that kind of secure home environment stems from the fact that both Fiona and John experienced life in that kind of homestead. She also feels it may have something to do with the sad reality that both of them lost their mothers at young ages.

"Both our mothers would have stayed at home, that would have given us a grounding. We made the decision to do that, now we don't change the car every year, we don't go on foreign holidays but we loved the fact that the door was always open when the kids came home from school, the dinner was made, the house was warm.

“We also both lost our mothers and that had a huge effect on us. My mother, Carmel Fox died at 50 when I was 25, John's mother Mary was just 41 and he was only 14. Something like that underlines to us the importance of the mother in the home. Ours was always a happy house and that's what I wanted for my children."

As a member of the Family Farm Committee for years, Fiona Curran has heard plenty of stories of people in the farming community struggling with the mental health particularly in these Covid days when isolation is a real problem. She knows there is a high level of suicides among farmers; she knows the struggles people have in keeping their farm units viable and she’s fully aware of how hopes can be dashed.

She knows all that, yet she's aware too from her own experience of the joys and huge benefits there is in living in the country, in chasing the dream.

The dream of the good life.