Search
03 Oct 2025
Search
03 Oct 2025
Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content.
Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist.
If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter .
Support our mission and join our community now.
To continue reading this article, you can subscribe for as little as €0.50 per week which will also give you access to all of our premium content and archived articles!
Alternatively, you can pay €0.50 per article, capped at €1 per day.
Thank you for supporting Ireland's best local journalism!
Sandra Schmid, her therapy horse Flora and her therapy dog Trudi
Sandra Schmid runs a small social enterprise called Hairy Henry Care Farm (www.hairyhenry.com), where she works together with her therapy animals, including Henry the horse, to help children and adults with special needs.
Sandra plans to travel on horseback all the way across Ireland, from the border to Northern Ireland, back down south to her care farm near Bantry in west Cork, in the coming weeks.
"I'll be using an old historical route also known as the Ireland Way or the Beara-Breifne Way," she says.
"I will undertake this horseback journey to raise funds for a barn where we can hold our therapeutic sessions throughout wet and windy weather.
"We started fundraising for this barn in 2018 and were able to raise enough money to finally start building in 2021, but there is lots more to do to finish this project and make it safe and accessible to the public."
Her journey started on Monday and Sandra will be riding through Tipperary on Thursday and Friday, April 7 and 8. She will be stopping in Templederry on Thursday and riding to Rusheen. On the following day she will ride from Rusheen to Upperchurch and then onto Milestone.
"I plan to travel along the historical Beara-Breifne route - as far as I know the route as a whole has never been undertaken by anyone on horseback since Donal Cam O' Sullivan Beare undertook this journey in 1603 from the south all the way up to Leitrim," she says.
"It is a distance just short of 600 kilometres and I will do this on horseback with one of our therapy horses, Flora (who is Hairy Henry's daughter), and my therapy dog Trudi.
"The trip has the purpose of attracting supporters and raising awareness for our small but very effective and worthwhile project, and the wonderful benefits horses can bring to people's lives. Of course, I also hope to spread cheer and joy and well-being amongst anyone my horse and I meet along the way.
"It will be an epic journey for a good cause. I will cover my own expenses, so that 100% of the funds raised along the way will go towards our therapy barn - for the benefit of all the families who we work for."
Donations can be made on https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-hairy-henry-care-farm-to-build-a-barn
Subscribe or register today to discover more from DonegalLive.ie
Buy the e-paper of the Donegal Democrat, Donegal People's Press, Donegal Post and Inish Times here for instant access to Donegal's premier news titles.
Keep up with the latest news from Donegal with our daily newsletter featuring the most important stories of the day delivered to your inbox every evening at 5pm.
This publication supports the work of the Press Council of Ireland and Office of the Press Ombudsman, and our staff operate within the Code of Practice of the Press Council. You can obtain a copy of the Code, or contact the Council, at www.presscouncil.ie, Lo-call 1800 208 080 or email: info@presscouncil.ie.
