The Cow Book’s John Connell: ‘Climate change is one of the great questions, but the future of farming is another’

The Longford writer and farmer on his new memoir ‘Twelve Sheep’, and the upcoming Granard Booktown literary festival

John Connell on his farm near Ballinalee, Co Longford. Photo: Frank McGrath

Hilary White

Just go slow. That was the answer John Connell found after life had begun to pull him in too many directions and a phase of burnout had ensued.

“I was overdoing it,” Connell says today. “That was a horrible experience, one I wouldn’t want to happen to anyone else.