Oliver mcdonnell

M

Mick mcquaid

Well-Known Member
Do you remember this man? He used to write every Tuesday for the farming independent.Gone off it a long time now! Does anybody know is he still alive?
 
Lived in the midlands for a while in recent years until health failed I believe. Led a very interesting life, lot of land between all of his own sons and son in laws now. I think he wrote a damning article on the meat factories and dept of ag at one stage and basically, the paper had to get rid of him as a result. Must have been a very big operator in his own time.
 
Nashty said:
Lived in the midlands for a while in recent years until health failed I believe. Led a very interesting life, lot of land between all of his own sons and son in laws now. I think he wrote a damning article on the meat factories and dept of ag at one stage and basically, the paper had to get rid of him as a result. Must have been a very big operator in his own time.
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It was an article about an ai companys straws not working that led to his leaving.
 
Mick mcquaid said:
He was a knowledgeable man.Always had an interesting column every Tuesday!
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Tales of him holding up traffic with a fastrac heading to the docks for feedstuff. He always aired things that went wrong or broke, the kind of stuff most would keep to themselves.
 
It was to do with sexed semen . More exactly the fact the sexed semen brought him a lot more bulls then heifers . :rolleyes2: Stopped buying the paper on a Tuesday when he no longer wrote in it .
Mf240 said:
It was an article about an ai companys straws not working that led to his leaving.
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massey 6480 said:
It was to do with sexed semen . More exactly the fact the sexed semen brought him a lot more bulls then heifers . :rolleyes2: Stopped buying the paper on a Tuesday when he no longer wrote in it .
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That's right, it was a product called female advantage by one of the bigger companies. He may have been right in what he said but still had to pay the price. There was s couple of full page ads for said company the following week. I was an ai tech with that company at the time so it stuck in my head
 
Green Grass said:
They discussed about him over other forum ,It seems his health failed and he ended up in a nursing home not much more said about him .I really locked forward every tuesday to what he was up to ,a real hard worker i would say .It just shows life is short .A sample of his column https://www.independent.ie/business...e-dawn-of-a-new-farm-millennium-26125888.html
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Never heard of him but I liked his writing style.

massey 6480 said:
It was to do with sexed semen . More exactly the fact the sexed semen brought him a lot more bulls then heifers . :rolleyes2: Stopped buying the paper on a Tuesday when he no longer wrote in it .
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In the article above he mentioned he used bulls and bought the best,something I’ve always done,I’m not a fan of fashion.
 
In the dim and distant past, there was an Irish monthly farming magazine, called The Farmer , Farmers Monthly , or something like that. I'm talking 1978 79 ish .
Oliver used to write in that publication.
He had recently bought a farm in Co Meath . Was reclaiming it , building a farmyard from scratch, building up a dairy herd . Oh , he and his wife , Rosemary? were rearing 7 children , while living in a mobile home. It would have been a good accomplishment for a persons lifetime.
The same publication had the late Bobby Bennett , who lived quite near @diesel power , write the feature on Sheep farming .
And a Pip Ryan from Newbawn in Co Wexford did the tillage feature. Possibly long dead now , I presume.
Amazing what I rember from 40 years ago but I'm damned if I can think of where I left the shovel 2 days ago ...
 
jf 850 said:
In the dim and distant past, there was an Irish monthly farming magazine, called The Farmer , Farmers Monthly , or something like that. I'm talking 1978 79 ish .
Oliver used to write in that publication.
He had recently bought a farm in Co Meath . Was reclaiming it , building a farmyard from scratch, building up a dairy herd . Oh , he and his wife , Rosemary? were rearing 7 children , while living in a mobile home. It would have been a good accomplishment for a persons lifetime.
The same publication had the late Bobby Bennett , who lived quite near @diesel power , write the feature on Sheep farming .
And a Pip Ryan from Newbawn in Co Wexford did the tillage feature. Possibly long dead now , I presume.
Amazing what I rember from 40 years ago but I'm damned if I can think of where I left the shovel 2 days ago ...
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The forums memory man :laugh:

Would pass Ryan's farm on a regular enough basis.
 
jf 850 said:
In the dim and distant past, there was an Irish monthly farming magazine, called The Farmer , Farmers Monthly , or something like that. I'm talking 1978 79 ish .
Oliver used to write in that publication.
He had recently bought a farm in Co Meath . Was reclaiming it , building a farmyard from scratch, building up a dairy herd . Oh , he and his wife , Rosemary? were rearing 7 children , while living in a mobile home. It would have been a good accomplishment for a persons lifetime.
The same publication had the late Bobby Bennett , who lived quite near @diesel power , write the feature on Sheep farming .
And a Pip Ryan from Newbawn in Co Wexford did the tillage feature. Possibly long dead now , I presume.
Amazing what I rember from 40 years ago but I'm damned if I can think of where I left the shovel 2 days ago ...
Click to expand...

Was He near Enfield? IIRC early nineties His herd was wipe out due to BSE and He started up again with imported stock??
 
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