Tipperary man was an environmental champion that was ahead of his time

Michael Hickey of Gortrua Organic Farm near New Inn, Tipperary who died recently after a short illness, was an environmental champion ahead of his time. 

He was born on May 12 1950 and died after a short illness on March 12 2024. An early adopter of organic farming in 1980s Ireland, he was a vocal and enthusiastic pioneer with the courage to challenge official government agricultural policy which was actively guiding and funding farmers in a different direction. Over the following forty years he used his extensive knowledge and powerful charisma to instruct and support many others towards a more sustainable farming practice. This role became formalised in recent years when he was engaged by the Farming for Nature organisation to become one of their influential ‘Ambassadors’ and most recently as a mentor in their Horse’s Mouth initiative, visiting farmers throughout the country to help them increase biodiversity while remaining productive. 

A bank manager’s son, Michael was born in Ennistymon, where his love of the countryside was firmly established. As a boy he loved to play in the woods and along the banks of the River Inagh, following a Huckleberry Finn existence climbing trees, collecting wild bird’s eggs, and breeding exotic birds to sell. Moving with his family to Dublin when he was twelve, his rebellious tendencies and dislike of formal teaching made attendance at Blackrock College painful for Michael and his teachers alike and his truancy record prompted his parents to move him to Rockwell College, near his uncle's farm in Tipperary. This was more productive, as the school allowed some latitude to his countryside wanderings. It was reported that when a family friend visiting the Rockwell inquired where he might find Michael, he was told ‘He could be out there anywhere on the back of a swan!’.  On finishing school, his family hoped that his enrolment in a business course in University College Dublin might see him finally settle down, but he was ejected at the end of his first year for his lamentable lecture attendance. 

There followed a peripatetic existence in the late sixties that included a sojourn in London, meanderings in Spain where at one point he sold his blood to pay for food, and  time in the USA, where he travelled the fabled Route 66 in a VW camper van with fellow wanderers. He found stability at last in Australia, where he resolved to write a book, in part to prove to his worried and doting mother that he could achieve a goal. In Sydney his good looks found him work modelling, and he got a job as a postman. He came to a halt in Alice Springs where he again worked mornings as a postman, retiring to write each afternoon. This work formed the basis for ‘Desert Dreaming’ which he finally self published in 2010, a coming of age reflective work which recorded his deep unease at the failure of European settlers to understand and emulate the intimate connection between the indigenous people of Australia and their land.  A key legacy of his time in Australia, Asia and India was his exposure to a more gentle way of agriculture in various sustainable farming practices he witnessed.

The death of his bachelor uncle brought him back to Ireland in 1981 to take over the family farm at Gortrua alongside the River Suir. There, with the help of a succession of visiting friends from his travels, he established an extraordinary Tipperary ‘Eden’, by gently tending farmland that had not been exposed to modern farming methods. Gortrua became a haven where friends from his travels came to work the land and stay awhile. Over the years he built a herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle, which were butchered locally and sold directly to consumer groups. The cattle, some horses, geese and goats grazed ‘the Inch’ beside the river, rambling amongst the willow stands and blackthorn thickets, spent summer days in ‘the bog’ amidst the orchids and fattened for the winter on the lush pastures of the higher fields.

Ahead of his time, Michael designated his field perimeters as habitats, and by the time the REPS agriculture payment scheme was introduced, they provided examples for official hedgerow policy. Today his hedges are mature linear woodlands, yielding shelter and biodiversity throughout the farm.

For over four decades, Michael immersed himself in the study of soil and organic farming methods. He was a founding member and enthusiastic champion of the Irish Organic Farm and Growers Association.  He later gained belated academic accreditation when he was awarded a diploma in Field Ecology in UCC in 2002. 

The combination of his learning and his deep love for the environment allowed him to reach an accommodation with nature and develop a farming practice that was in synergy with the ecosystem. In recent years he regularly hosted botanical groups and farm walks for agricultural students and landowners contemplating a move to organic farming where his infectious good humour and lively banter helped to win over new converts. He was a founding member of Hedgerows Ireland, a Tipperary based environmental group, and in February 2022 was part of a delegation to present a list of recommendations for better payments and protections for hedgerows to the Dáil Committee for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. 

He is survived by his wife Ute and sons Luke and Liam.