Connemara shepards in the mountains of US being remembered in Carna

Galway Bay fm newsroom – Connemara men who shepherded sheep in the mountains of Oregon and Idaho in America are being remembered at an event in Carna this week.

Efforts to revive the native Cladóir sheep will also be discussed.

They left from Joyce Country, Bun na gCnoc, Inis Lacken island, and from south Connemara.

Their destination was the States of Oregon and Idaho where they shepherded sheep on far-flung territories

Their job was to find grazing where they could for hundreds and thousands of sheep on the mountains and to protect them from the bears and coyotes.

For weeks they could be alone in their tent – their horse, their dog, and their gun alongside

Some of their descendants still live in the Juntura Valley in Oregon and elsewhere. They are a community in decline but they have a deep awareness of their background.

The Connemara emigrants to the mountains of the American West will be remembered at an event in the Emigrants Centre in Carna this coming Wednesday evening.

And links will be established with their descendants.

At that same event, there will be an old native sheep breed from Connemara on display; they are called the Cladóir (the seaside sheep) and there is an effort ongoing to revive them.