Today had a lovely visit & conversation with artist Deirdre O’Mahony
Channel: Zwartbles Ireland Suzanna Crampton
Date: 22/09/2021

Deirdre O’Mahony @DeirdreOMahony5 has done some fantastic work about food, food heritage and has a great interest in sustainable farming. Potatoes and sanfoil both being of interesting which is why she was pleased to see it growing in my mix species sward here on the farm.
We’re hoping to work together over the coming years. By working together I really mean that I help Deirdre in her work not that I do all that much artistically but help point her in the directions of different people with great depth of knowledge than I myself might have on particular subjects within sustainable farming & food production.



Zwartbles Ireland is a small company run from a farm in County Kilkenny in Ireland. We are a regenerative farm which means restoring soils health and regenerating its natural carbon and nutrient cycle with biodiversity of pasture sward with grasses, legumes, forbs and herbs. This also means we farm with nature. Healthy soils are important for healthy environment. So we encourage all life from the microbial to dung beetles, ants, pollinators to flora biodiversity, birds, hare, hedgehogs, rabbits, fox, badger as well as our livestock. This mean we farm in a style of mob grazing and giving fields long rest times between grazings. We have seen a huge increase and return of wildlife including woodcock and snipe in winter months foraging for dung beetle larvae, red squirrel, wood peckers and pine martens. We also have the rare natter bat and previously thought extinct Tawny Mining bees.
We sell, Zwartbles sheep, Zwartbles blankets and yarn made from the sheep, and calendars featuring Inca the World's Smallest Sheepdog and her coworkers. We also sell alpaca yarn spun for our own alpaca. Our yarns are 100 percent natural, grown by our sheep which grazing our small green Irish fields. This wool is naturally sequestered carbon which you can then knit into warm environmental friendly clothing.