A sit down chat with Austin O’Callaghan in Barberstown Castle before their charity Sunflower Fields event for Pieta House and Women’s Aid.

How are you feeling about Saturday? Yeah, we’re really excited about next Saturday, the 2nd of August. We’re getting to open our sunflower field.

We planted the sunflowers a number of months back. The weather’s been really good to us — a little bit of sunshine, a lot of rain thrown in as well — and now they’re just about ready. After this week, we’re expecting them to be in full bloom. You’re talking about thousands and thousands of sunflowers across a big field. Some of them are as tall as eight foot now. You’ve the big ones, the small ones, all different types.

The idea itself came around from just scrolling, as people do. You go through your Facebook, you go through your Instagram, your TikTok — and these beautiful images of sunflower fields were popping up. In a lot of cases, farmers were running them as commercial ventures, which is brilliant. It’s a great initiative, and it’s a good way to bring extra income into a farm.

But beside Barberstown Castle we’ve a bit of land that wasn’t being used. Shame to say it, but we just weren’t using it. Half of it would be overflow parking when needed, and the rest was just going to seed. So we decided, why not? Let’s use four to six acres of it to plant sunflowers.

Last year was our first year doing it, and it went really well. We didn’t want to go the commercial route, so instead, we picked two charities to benefit. People could come visit the field, walk through it, pick their own sunflowers, and if they wanted, they could pop a donation into one of the conscience boxes we had there. We raised over €5,000 in that first year.

This year, we’re hoping to raise even more.

We’ve planted approximately three quarters of the field again, all in sunflowers. And not just one type, lots of different varieties. They’re huge. They look fantastic. We’ve also added something new this year, a little miniature tractor made pathways through the field, with a large circle in the centre. So you can walk through tunnels of sunflowers and then stand right in the middle, surrounded on every side by these big, beautiful yellow flowers that follow the sun.

It’s just a lovely thing to experience. You can get great photos… of the sunflowers, of yourself, your family. And you can’t help but smile when you see that many sunflowers together. It’s a feel-good kind of thing.

We’ve chosen Pieta House and Women’s Aid as our charities this year. Two fantastic organisations. It’s hard to pick, because there are so many worthy causes across Ireland, but these two are very close to our hearts. Pieta’s work in suicide prevention and awareness, and Women’s Aid supporting women going through domestic violence or abuse, they’re vital. These organisations need our help. This is our small way of doing that.

So how do people get involved? Just come and visit. Come take a walk around the field. We suggest a donation, we’re not holding anyone to it. We still have the conscience boxes, so it’s entirely up to people what they leave. Our suggestion is that each visitor leaves at least one euro, just something to support the cause.

We’ll also have sunflowers for sale, already cut, in big buckets. And don’t worry, there’ll still be hundreds of thousands left in the field. We’re charging one euro per sunflower, just a nominal amount, but I think people will probably give a lot more. It’s all going to a good place.

That’s the main thing. It’s not just about the field. It’s about supporting causes that matter. We’re proud to do it, and we’d love people to come out, enjoy it, and help where they can.

This Saturday, 2nd August. Just beside Barberstown Castle. Come out, bring your friends, bring the kids. It’s something small that might make a big difference.

This article is brought to you by an Interview through the Grassroots Journo.