Since 1974, Kerry Lamb & Wool Co-Op has supported sheep farmers across Munster by collecting and exporting fleeces that once covered our hills in abundance. But over the past two decades, things have changed.
“Just look up at the mountain behind us,” says co-op manager Seán Moriarty. “Since the quotas came in 2000, there’s over 6,000 sheep gone off that mountain. A huge loss — not just 6,000 fleeces of wool, but feed, fertiliser and all the activity that went with it.”
As sheep numbers fall and rural farming faces a demographic cliff, wool — once a cornerstone of Irish farming — is now classed as a waste product. Most of the 7,000 tonnes clipped annually in the Republic go unused.
A Vital Local Outlet
Despite these challenges, Kerry Lamb & Wool Co-Op continues to provide one of the only dedicated wool collection services for farmers in the region. Every year, we travel the backroads of Kerry and beyond, gathering wool that would otherwise go to waste and exporting it to established markets in Bradford, the UK and China.
Without this outlet, many farmers would have no alternative.
“If we didn’t have this here, we’d have nowhere else to go,” says sheep farmer John Joe Fitzgerald of the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers’ Association. “The co-op has been a huge part of keeping local farming viable.
We're proud to partner with national efforts like the Irish Grown Wool Council and collaborate with MTU Tralee and University College Cork to research sustainable wool futures. And here in Kerry, community projects like The Wise Wool Project are helping people reconnect with wool as a precious, versatile resource.
Wise Wool, supported by Creative Ireland, brings felting workshops, storytelling, and fibre arts into schools, festivals and community halls — reawakening public awareness that wool is not waste, but a natural, biodegradable, local material with enormous potential.
“Wool is part of our identity,” says project co-lead Lisa Sandow. “We're trying to help people imagine what’s possible — for farming, for the planet, and for craft.”
The RevEire project is researching Regenerative Value Systems for Irish Grown Wool in Ireland.
It is being led by UCC (MaREI and Business School) in collaboration with TUS and CABR and other universities across the Island of Ireland
The core motivation of this project is to develop ways for wool to evolve from a waste farm product with negative return on investment, (i.e., shearing costs currently exceed market value of the wool) to a valuable product and provide data and evidence to inform Government policies, initiatives and investments required for regenerating the Irish grown wool industry for a sustainable circular bioeconomy,
The Springwool Project addresses long-standing challenges in the wool sector, including low returns for farmers and environmental constraints. It explores sustainable wool processing methods such as the feasibility of mobile scouring units and investigates new applications for waste wool, including the extraction of bioactive compounds like keratin.
Wool is Worth It
Wool is renewable. It’s durable. It’s biodegradable. It’s part of Irish rural heritage — and part of our ecological future. But to keep it alive, wool needs investment, imagination and infrastructure.
At Kerry Lamb & Wool Co-Op, we are committed to:
Fighting for fairer recognition of wool’s value
Creating export pathways that work for local farmers
Championing education and sustainability in wool use
Keeping the door open for a new generation of upland and drystock farmers
As long as there are sheep in our fields, there will be a place for wool — and a future to build.
