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27th Feb 2018

Kerry farmers are putting down the shovels and picking up yoga mats, and the internet has gone wild

Michael Lanigan

Next thing you know, the CrossFit and gin socials will be heading down too.

The Six One news may have given us the first great news segment of 2018 and surprisingly enough, it’s not involving the weather, just in case we all thought the Beast Of The East had brought us another Teresa Mannion hit.

No, this one involves a group of farmers in Kerry who have fallen in love with yoga and practice it on a weekly basis.

Yes, yoga farmers are finally a thing, and we’re not talking about the guy in the office who left Ranelagh to make granola in a moderately rural area. These farmers are the whole bucket of unpasturised milk.

Interviewing one farmer named Mike O’Shea, he told RTÉ how “You’d be a new man after coming back from yoga.”

“I live on my own is the main reason. It’s an excuse to get out of the house”, he went on to say.

“I’m not a man for the bar. Rural isolation is a big problem. If you don’t get out of the house, you’ll be left behind.”

The report has since become a bit of a hit on Twitter, with absolutely everybody wanting to chime in with delight about this odd twist in the brilliantly unending story that is county Kerry.

Of course, the yoga hasn’t always fared that well outside Dublin and other cities. Back in 2014, churchgoers in Gaoth Dobhair, Donegal were told by the parish priest, Fr. Padraig O’Baoill that yoga was the devil itself.

In his newsletter, he wrote: “As followers of Jesus Christ we should not partake in deeds that go against our religion.”

“Accordingly, you should do not take part in yoga, thai chai [sic] or reiki. Do not put your soul in jeopardy for the sake of these contemptible things.”

Kerry has fallen to a grave sin or reached enlightenment, but we’re pretty sure it’s the latter.

Anyway, does somebody around here have a recipe for Thai Chai?

LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge

Topics:

Farmer,Kerry,Yoga