The Godfather Of Soil

t’s an ambitious project, to be sure, but one that makes perfect sense.

Take seven acres of your 150-year-old family farm and turn it into an eco-haven, complete with allotments, remote work huts, 6,000 trees of different varieties, 4,000 shrubs, 2.5km of hedgerows and two curious donkeys.

For Huw O’Toole, it’s a long-held dream that, thanks to all this lockdown limbo – and his grain-store-turned-hot-desk-HQ Hub13 being putting on hold – he is finally putting together.

With a little help from his family, and friends, and two curious donkeys called Davie and Stevie. Who appear to have this whole country living thing licked.

“The project is to lay a foundation for an agroforestry project,” explains Huw, “which is all about increased biodiversity and soil quality. It’s basically how farming the land used to be done, before we thought we could cheat nature.”

Situated just outside Newtownmountkennedy, the first part of the Tírmór jigsaw is now underway, with allotments of various sizes available for people to stick their flag in. And their carrots. And spuds. And those funny plants that look like nettles and sting like a butterfly.

“We’re looking to complete this whole development over the next five years,” says Huw. “Naturally, we want to do it right. And that means doing it naturally, step by step, piece by piece.

“It’s going to be amazing…”

Darn tootin’. You can get involved by contacting Huw on tirmor@hub13.ie or 0878041636. In the meantime, the man who fell back to earth took us on a tour of Tírmór…

You can find out more about the Hub13 office spaces right about here. And here’s Big Country, baby!