‘After years of abuse, working on the farm is the reason I’m alive today’

John Murphy ‘could barely speak at all’ and wouldn’t trust anyone until he joined a social farming programme on Richard Moeran’s 500ac Cavan farm 12 years ago. The 20-week stint went so well that he got a job on the mixed holding when it ended, and he has been there ever since. John explains how farm life has been ‘life-changing’ – and Richard reveals how the initiative has benefited him too

John Murphy with the sheep on Farren-Connell farm in Mountnugent, Co Cavan; he started on a social farming programme there 12 years ago and has been working there ever since

Azmia Riaz

‘The first time I could really feel the breeze on my face was at the farm,” says John Murphy, “It was my first proper job over 10 years ago — I could feel the rain hit me and it was the first time I felt alive.

“Now I work at a farm three days a week. I don’t think I would have been alive if it weren’t for this work.”