A bright start to the weekend with Damien O'Reilly and the CountryWide team, featuring events, people and happenings from across the country.
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Throughout 2025, the Countrywide team was on the open roads visiting homes and farms across the country, and here are some of the team's favorite pieces.
For this special edition of Countrywide, we have gathered stories of Christmas preparations from across the country and sprinkled them with music from RTE Lyric FM's ever popular Choirs for Christmas competition. (For copyright reasons the full tracks performed cannot be podcast)
Lorna Siggins meets Peter Connolly, Dara Bailey and Ray O Beara of Bádóirí an Chladaigh as they illuminate three traditional boats with Christmas lights in the Claddagh Basin.
There's an Irish Christmas food tradition from coastal communities that traveled the world. Salted White Fish, boiled potatoes, drowned in white sauce, served on Christmas Eve night. It has been observed as far afield as Newfoundland, but Aran Islanders lay special claim to it.
Frances Murphy is a candlemaker originally from Bere Island in West Cork. She is an aromatherapist and reflexologist who has developed her own range of sustainable candles.
Red Books is an independent bookstore located in Wexford town that sell new, previously loved, antiquarian and collectible books.
Craft workshops, Carol singing, hot chocolate and Christmas decorations... It's all there at Kilfinane Intercultural Winterfest.
Following one year on from Philip's last visit, East Galway farmers Joe and Michael Dempsey have once again suffered another TB breakdown, leading to their farm going into lockdown. With calves being born all the time, many more expected in January, and no sale of animals off the farm allowed, Joe and Michael are struggling to cope.
Three more years of derogation from nitrates directive for 7,000 farms announced by the Department to prove to Brussels that derogation farms are not harming sensitive natural habitats. However, a report has revealed a further decline of Ireland's natural habitats. Environmental lawyer Alice Whittaker and derogation farmer Gillian O'Sullivan.
Louping Ill is a serious tick borne disease, deriving from the distressing behaviour of infected sheep - including jumping - or louping. Now, a problem for hill farmers in the West of Ireland. With a vaccine potentially being brought to market, John Gibbons who farms near Tourmakeady, and vet Fiona Murphy explained to Lorna Siggins the impact.
Darina Allen of Ballymaloe Cookery School discusses how, long before Turkey became traditional, Goose was our Christmas roast of choice and had been since medieval times.
Could a little grass-herb, dismissed in the past as a weed, play a key role in solving Ireland's livestock/water quality issue? With Thomas Moloney, DLF Seeds; Thomas Duffy, dairy farmer.
A visit to the newly opened tourist facility which will also play a role in preserving the genetic heritage of our native pony. With Cathy Snow and Martin Coyne.
BBC Farming Journalist Anna Hill reports on the impacts of two years of the virus in England and Wales. Dept of Agriculture deputy chief veterinary officer, Dr Eoin Ryan, on what will happen if the virus is found in livestock south of the border.
PJ Davon, the lead Stonemason in Connemara National Park, tells Treasa Breathnach how to building a stone wall is part engineering exercise and part art form.
A new anaerobic digester in Meath, one of the first of many, raises questions about where will all the grass to feed them come from? Minister Darragh O'Brien promises to publish the long awaited Land Use Review which will answer that question.
How do you relate to the landscape and what is going on in the countryside if you are blind or partially sighted. Suzanne Campbell reports from Gavin Cromwell's racing yard using touch, smell and sound.
Agriculture Minister Martin Heydon shares new detail on what promises he had to make on improving water quality in order to secure the EU Commission's support for a renewal of Ireland's derogation from the Nitrates Directive.
Walking the banks of the River Nore, artist Bernadette Kiely tells Della Kilroy how she thinks rivers simultaneously shape the landscape and our sense of ourselves.
Just how historically accurate is the Netflix series about the brewing dynasty. In the grounds of Ashford Castle, one of the family's many houses, historian Adrian Tinniswood fact checks the hit show.
Keith Brennan goes to one hell of a hooley in Tooreen dancehall in Mayo
Countrywide visited a farm in County Kildare that was flooded by recent heavy rain.
Two pupils in Loreto secondary school Fermoy look like they are on the brink of developing a biodegradable plastic packaging made from seaweed washed up on the shore.
Back in the early nineties all across the EU a rule was introduced to protect rivers and streams from agricultural run off. At the last count 7,000 out of 137,000 farms in Ireland had received a derogation from this directive. A decision on this derogation is on the agenda at the next meeting of the EU's Nitrates Committee on December 9.
Irish scientist Mark John Costello, based at Nord University in Norway, looked at the evidence of economic benefits on 50 existing marine protected areas in 31 countries. Can protecting parts of our oceans actually increase profits for the fishing industry?
The Tralee Oyster Fishery was founded in 1979, after the near collapse of the native oyster stock. The local fishers came together to restore the population and today, they're a cooperative of 200 fishers who both profit from and protect the fish in the bay.
In Monaghan, a not-for-profit co-operative called Síolta Chroí is hosting training courses on regenerative agriculture. They recently started a six-week program called Farming the System, aimed at helping local farmers to create more diversified and resilient farms. For more details, visit sioltachroi.ie
Several cases of avian have now been confirmed here in Ireland, and that means it's more important than ever to stick to strict biosecurity measures. Dr June Fanning is Chief Veterinary Officer at the Department of Agriculture, and Paul Moore is a tillage farmer from Cork.
The Marine Casualty Investigation Board is the body that investigates accidents and incidents at sea. It says that fatalities and injuries remain too high, especially on smaller boats under 15 metres in length.
In 2021, Nick and Cass McCarthy set up Lúnasa Farm on 30 acres of land in Co. Clare. Neither of them comes from a farming background. Nick's an engineer by trade, and he met Cass while working in her home country of Australia. lunasafarm.ie for more details
Last month, Séamus Boland became President of the European Economic and Social Committee, an EU body that gives voice to workers, businesses, farmers and communities right across Europe.
Across Ireland, repair cafés are springing up. The idea is simple: reduce waste, reuse what you can, and give old items, from clothing to furniture, a new lease of life.
At the moment, anyone across the world can use “Donegal Tweed” to describe their fabric, whether it was made in Donegal or not. This might all stop because the Donegal Tweed Association is applying to get official EU recognition and legal protection.
Mary Reynolds is a writer based in Wexford. She's been thinking about how our concept of nature has shifted over generations and wants to introduce us to the idea of Shifting Baseline Syndrome.
Last month the government allocated €157 million of public money in Budget 2026 for the Department of Agriculture to continue their efforts to eradicate the disease.
Two very large farms that have just come on the property market, and the asking prices for both say all kinds of fascinating things about the value we attach to land.
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