Offaly Unsung Hero 2023 recipient lauded in Seanad speech by Minister Pippa Hackett

Tony was presented with his honour at the Offaly Person of the Year ceremony – organised by the Offaly Association (Dublin) – held in the Bridge House in Tullamore recently.

NUJ Irish Secretary and Assistant General Secretary, Seamus Dooley, a native of Ferbane, was honoured at the ceremony as the 2023 Offaly Person of the Year.

In the Seanad debate on Tuesday the Offaly based Minister said she was struck by the words of retired dairy farmer and well known inventor Tony Bergin, from Cooleshall, as he accepted the award at a reception in Tullamore recently.

Speaking in the Seanad she said “In his very powerful acceptance speech, Tony spoke with a mix of nostalgia, passion and sorrow, as he described memories of hunting and fishing, and walking through the fields and meadows, with bees and butterflies flying around him.

He recalls listening to the corncrake and hearing the lonesome call of the curlew. Sounds he hasn’t heard in many years.”

Minister Pippa Hackett said that what particularly struck her, and has remained with her since, are these lines  “As farming progressed, we ploughed up the fields of flowers and sowed a new type of grass, so you had a lovely green field, but without a flower in it, and those flowers were the source of food for all the wildlife. […] Nature planted these fruit trees, and man destroyed them.”

The Minister for State in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine said “Unfortunately Tony’s account, while sad, is a reality we must own up to – and by ‘we’ I mean policy makers.”

She said that, for decades “We have been encouraging, training and incentivising farmers to chase higher yields, without much regard for the impact of these policies on nature.” She continued to say that “policy makers need to acknowledge the mistakes we have made, and commit to supporting farmers to go back to doing what is in their DNA and their hearts, because farmers want to farm, and I know they can restore nature while they do that.”

She concluded by saying “Tony, like so many farmers before and after him, loves nature. While he is officially our unsung hero in Offaly, I’m sure he won’t mind me saying that there are farmers like him, all over the country who are unsung heroes for nature, who long for the return of wildlife onto their farms. So, thank you Tony Bergin for your reflective insights.”

Watch full speech https://youtu.be/hU1G9dO75F4