CBD News Blog – Hemp is amazingly versatile, but for a new Cavan enterprise, it is the plant’s health properties which is their main focus. Micheál Ó Lionsaigh takes a handful of the scrubby foliage for me to savour its aroma.

“What you’re smelling is the medicinal quality of the plant,” he says. “And that lies in the leaves, that’s where we extract the oil.”

We’re standing amongst three acres of hemp plants grown at a Stradone farm. Photographer Sheila Rooney had been out to capture the fields in their full blooming colour a few weeks earlier. By the time this reporter arrives, the hemp plants have seen better days. They have already been harvested by hand, but the resilient stalks remain erect.