Irish farmer with no power or water details his struggles in the aftermath of Storm Éowyn

On Monday's episode of RTÉ Radio 1's Liveline, Katie Hannon spoke with Niall, a farmer from West Clare, who has been left devastated by the impact of Storm Éowyn. 

Niall, a father of three, including a nine-month-old baby, lost power in the height of the Status Red wind warning. He told Katie Hannon, "We have no power, for what looks like to be the foreseeable."

Keeping calm and collected under the pressure, Niall's main focus are his cows, who are due for spring calving. 

The farmer explained, "I use the synchronization programme, so I could have 40 calves by next Monday. I have a PTO generator, so, I'm probably in a fairly okay position on that end, but that won't run the cameras during the night, so pretty much, I'll probably just stay with them. It is what it is." 

The ongoing issues are forcing the father to get creative.

With no water, he managed to get a well up and running, and while this water is fine for his animals, it is not safe for Niall's family, particularly for his baby, who needs clean water for his bottles and the sterilisation of them.

He told Liveline, "My child requires boiled water for his milk. We've purchased water now, and I have a gas barbecue, we're lucky that it was something we just had in our shed, it's got a ring so I'm able to boil water on that, and lucky enough again, we have a turf fire, so we're able to run heat." 

The storm's destruction also took an emotional toll on the farmer.

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Niall revealed the heart-breaking loss of his trees, some of which he and his father planted together, saying, "I took a good walk through, for maybe about an hour, and I would say about a third of the trees are down, about 25 year old forestry, at least the third,"

The farmer continued, "Yeah, it's pretty much a mess there. That's as bad as anything to walk through, you know, you'd be hoping to see them mature in the next number of years. It wasn't nice."

Thankfully, Niall's family home was spared from any damage, though his farm and sheds weren't as lucky. Regardless of the damage, and loss of water and power, he is grateful the situation wasn't worse. 

Niall shared, "I have the generator. The house is away from the farm too, so the house isn't hooked up to that generator, but I'm going to act on that now. Having known, from what I've seen, is that we're likely to be out for a number of days, so I'll get the house wired up that that generator, it can operate both.

"But again, that can't run all night. It'll be running off a tractor, you know, so it'll be just intermittent, but it gets us out of a bit of a hole," he added. 

Through it all, Niall and his family aim to persevere, telling Katie, "We'll stay as positive as we can," demonstrating resilience in the aftermath of the record-breaking Storm Éowyn.