A day on the farm at Waterford's Curraghmore estate

Although the work is hard, Áine Maher and Jolene Coady believe they have the best job in the world. For almost a year they have been working on the farm in Curraghmore. They work with farm manager Colm Warner who they say is "a dream to work with".

After 10 years of working in social care, Jolene was burnt out and started to re-evaluate her place in the world.

Her wife Áine had always been outdoorsy and was working in the Curraghmore gardens.

They live in a cottage on the premises, which was personally renovated by Lady Waterford.

According to Áine, Lady Waterford is “the most down-to-earth person you can find. You can have a chat with her, and she’ll have a laugh. She’ll get stuck into the jobs. One morning I came in, her hand was down a drain clearing it.”

As we walked around the old ivy house and past the beehives, Jolene told me that not a single person in Portlaw died during the famine. The family in Curraghmore at the time stopped exporting food to Britain and instead made sure the local community was fed.

Obviously things are far better now than they were in the 1840s, but I am struck by this pattern in history. Ireland is once again facing a food crisis and Curraghmore has stepped in just in time with affordable, high-quality food. Rather than giving jobs to the materially destitute, they are handing out lifelines to the emotionally burnt out. People like Jolene and Áine who could not continue spending their lives indoors.

Jolene had zero experience with pigs and growing vegetables, but the team at Grow could sense her enthusiasm. 

“They took us on knowing we were good people and that we wanted to learn.” 

Áine “absolutely” inspired Jolene to go for a job working outdoors.

We made our way to a little shed on the top of a hill, which has been kitted out with a kettle, coffee and some KitKats. We sit outside on camping chairs and watch swallows flit across the field.

Whilst most people have their 11 o’clock coffee in a dingy breakroom with fluorescent lighting, the couple get to play with their dog Nova and enjoy the sunshine.

Although they remind me that when it's raining, it’s a very different picture.

Áine has worked outdoors since she was 15. As a horse trainer for 25 years, a gardener and now as a farmer.

Her work “had to be outdoors”. The two operate as a team so when Jolene got the job of looking after the farming on the weekends, Áine would come along to give her a hand. It made sense then that they would formalise the arrangement.

The head farmer Colm and head grower Richard are “mines of information”. The two have been together for 15 years. They take their dog to work with them.

“We are so blessed to have that amount of time together, most couples just see each other when they get home from work,” Áine said. “It doesn’t feel like work.”

Jolene added, “We’ve finally found our niche in life. We’ve both done jobs that ran us into the ground. We’ve both done high-intensity jobs. Not only does this life soothe the senses, it also gives us pleasure to see what we’ve grown, to look after the animals, seeing people enjoy our produce.” 

Áine said: “Everything is grown from seed; everything is harvested by hand.” 

There is also absolutely no pesticides used on the farm, which means all the weeding is also done by hand. It also means that the honey Jolene collects from the hive is a rich, golden colour.

A typical day for Áine begins with feeding the chickens and mending fences. She’ll collect the eggs, prepare the veg boxes. She is working on harvesting, clearing the polytunnel for the next planting season.

“There’s always something to do.” 

Jolene looks after the bees.

After our coffee, they take me to meet the pigs.

The pigs seem to play a loveable but chaotic role in her life; they regularly ‘break out’ and end up in people’s gardens. There have been surprise pregnancies (“The sow had a great night one night”). But when we go to visit them, Áine pets them affectionately as you would a house pet.

There is an apple orchard in the area where they live, meaning the pigs subsist on organic apples, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, and nuts. Their diet is better than most people I know. This stress-free lifestyle and amazing diet supplies high quality, ethical pork to the GIY café.

There is a sense of abundance on this farm, wild mint grows on the borders of the trodden paths, fiery orange squashes gleam like rare gemstones in the emerald, rain-soaked field and just inside the door of the coffee shed are stacks of smooth, biscuit-coloured eggs.

But there is an abundance, too, of spirit.

Jolene told me: "Sometimes the sweat will be pouring off of us, we’ll be bruised from head to foot but we’ll look at each other and just burst out laughing. And when we go home, we’re happy because we know we’ve done a good day's work.” 

“It’s the best job I’ve ever had,” said Jolene.