TJ Maher Maher and his father Tom own a beef and dairy farm 10 miles outside Thurles in south Tipperary. TJ and Tom have run the farm between them for the last 12 years but in recent years Tom, now 65, began to scale down his workload in preparation for retirement. In May of last year, however, his plans had to go on hold when TJ was appointed president of the young farmers' organisation Macra na Feirme. "I was elected in April 1999 and I took over in May," says TJ. "I know he would have retired a year or two earlier were it not for the Macra development."

Tom and his wife Margaret had not named a retirement date before TJ announced his plans, but they had been thinking about retiring last year. Had Tom retired before May 1999, it would have been impossible for TJ to take up the presidency. Under the EU retirement pension policy you can't retire and then return to active farming. "Once I became Munster vice-president and the likelihood of going for president increased, there was discussion about what it would mean in relation to his retirement. I was anxious that he wouldn't retire, because if he did I knew I wouldn't be able to go for the presidency."

Before TJ became Macra president he, Tom and Margaret shared the farm work and financial management between them. Now however TJ gets to spend just "half a Sunday" each week on the farm and so Tom and Margaret have to cope on their own. "My father has had to scale back up from a period where he was able to take more time off to where he is more than full-time - both Mammy and Daddy are six days a week at the moment."

Tom admits that the sudden increase in work has been tough on him and Margaret. "The workload has been heavier than we expected. As we were, we could take a day off, or a few days, but when you have people in to do work you don't rely on them to the same extent as you do your own no matter how good they are, and we have had some good lads here." Even finding people to take up the work has been "a job in itself", says Tom. Due to labour shortages it has been impossible to get someone full time and this has increased the pressure on Tom and Margaret.

"We were in a little bit of a doubt about retiring prior to TJ leaving - we have no doubts about it now at all. From that point of view it has helped us make up our minds about retirement and we're looking forward to the end of May when he'll be back.

"We're coping," says Tom. "We're counting the months though."

Although TJ knows that Tom is looking forward to retirement, he feels it might be difficult for him to give up the reins when the presidency ends next May. "He's making the decisions now and it's going to be difficult for him just to walk away from that after being so intrinsically involved for the last two years." While Tom concedes that he has "become accustomed" to TJ being away he doesn't think he will have any misgivings about handing things over. "I'm at an age now where it's time for me to be handing over the reins and I feel like I've done my life sentence if you like. TJ is busy now, but he'll be very busy when the month of May comes because he won't see too much of us for a while."

Tom is still glad that TJ went ahead and took the break from the farm.

"Since he was in national school he was interested in Macra and when his chance came up for the presidency he asked for two years off and we felt that we couldn't stand in his way.

"I went to England to work for two years as a young lad and we felt he would benefit from going away too; it helped prevent him from being too much of a mammy's boy."