For more than a decade, Clare singer Peter O’Donohue immersed himself in the rarefied world of top-class opera.

Yet, as he travelled from one great stage to the next, building a reputation for himself in Ireland and abroad, part of him remained on his small family farm in the Burren.

Please log in or register with Farming Independent for free access to this article.

Log In

New to Independent.ie? Create an account

So it was that in November of 2017, coming off stage after another successful run at Wexford Festival Opera, he found himself at a crossroads.

The two great loves of his life, farming and opera, were calling to him. And it was time for him to choose.

Peter’s first love was farming. Growing up on a small family holding in Fanore, split between pasture and upland winterage, he learned to rear cattle in the traditional way that farmers have been practising in the Burren for centuries.

As a youngster he seemed destined to take over the farm from his parents PJ and Dympna. But, as a teenager, his life took an unexpected turn when he was sent to Lisdoonvarna-based music teacher Archie Simpson for piano lessons and discovered a love for opera.

“They couldn’t keep me off the farm as a kid,” he says. “We didn’t live on the farm, we lived just down the road and my granny, Josie, lived in the farm house. But I was constantly up there. I loved it, everything about it.

“Going up through school and into secondary school, farming was always where I was going to end up. Even back then there wasn’t much money in farming but I still wanted to do it.

Get the latest news from the Farming Independent team 3 times a week.

Sign Up

“That’s when I met Archie Simpson and my life got turned around. He got me into singing and became my first singing teacher.

“After that, a sharp left turn took place in my life. I could see that there was a life for me in music, in singing. So I had to make a choice when I sat my Leaving Cert, and I decided to go to the Conservatory of Music in DIT.

“So I did four years of college and that was amazing. It was an incredible time, opera after opera. But when I came out and got into the professional world of singing, I realised how much of a dog-eat-dog world it is.

“It was a constant battle to make it. It was difficult, there is very little work in Ireland for opera singers. So it wasn’t easy.”

Like all emerging opera singers, Peter had to fight for every role and every bit of success that came his way. Opera is an all-consuming vocation, and it left little time for anything else, certainly not for farming.

Peter performed with every major opera company in Ireland including Wexford Opera and Opera Ireland, often as the solo tenor.

After ten years chasing one dream, he decided that the time had come to chase another.

“A couple of years ago, I got to the stage where I wanted a bit more out of my life,” he says. “I was sick of living out of a suitcase, sick of travelling around the place, sick of worrying where my next job was coming from. So I drew a line in the sand.

“When I was in different parts of the world singing, part of me was always thinking about being back at home on the farm. Whenever I’d come home, I’d drive past Black Head into Fanore and a smile would come across my face. There was such a sense of relief in it.

“I’d come home, I’d go up and see the cattle and I’d feel happy. I started asking myself, was that same smile on my face when I was leaving the farm to go back to singing, and it wasn’t.

“Some of the most amazing experiences of my life have come through singing and opera. I love opera. In a way, I love it to the point that I had to give it up because I wasn’t able to do it to the full of my ability.”

In late 2017, the call of the farm became too much. Peter returned home and began the process of taking over the farm from his parents. He is now close to completing his Green Cert at Pallaskenry Agricultural College.

Life on the farm is completely different from his life in opera.

“I love the cattle, the machinery, being outdoors and being your own boss,” he says. “You get to stand in a place and say, ‘this is mine’. Not too many in the world can say that. You are rooted to it.

“We have 26 suckler cows and about 29 calves at the minute. We’re farming on the Burren, and the big advantage of that is that the cattle never need to come in. We put them up into the winterage, when farmers would normally be putting them into a slatted shed. We only have one shed on our farm and if you ever see a cow in there you know that there is something wrong with it.

“The Burren is such a small part of Ireland and our way of farming is very different. It’s a big advantage that we don’t have to bring the cattle in for the winter, but the other side of that is that everywhere you look, there is a rock.”

For Peter, his connection with farming and his connection with the unique Burren landscape go hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin, both impossible for him to resist.

“The Burren is important. I’m not sure I’d have the same grá for it [farming] if it was somewhere else. I’ve travelled the world and I’ve never seen anywhere like it,” he says.

“I remember I stuck a backpack on my back and went around South America on my own. I went up the west coast of Chile and Argentina, along Patagonia. Some people say that Patagonia is the most beautiful place in the world, and sometimes your jaw would be on the floor with the beauty.

“But every time I’d see one of these amazing places, and the people around would be raving about how beautiful it is, I’d turn to them and say, ‘ah lads, but ye haven’t seen the Burren’.

“I realise now that I had it all growing up. It was a perfect childhood on that farm.

“I’d like to settle down and have a family some day and that wasn’t possible when I was singing. You couldn’t tour around, live out of a suitcase, and have a family.

“If I do have kids, they will be brought up on the Burren. It is the best place that any child could have.”

Source: Read Full Article