Mullingar teen embraces ‘Raised by the Village’ life

A Mullingar teenager has embraced country living after appearing on RTÉ’s Raised by the Village on Sunday, a show that takes young people into the heart of rural Ireland to learn about life in a close-knit community.

Fifteen-year-old Karl Griffin from Lakepoint is a TY student at St Finian’s College and an avid gamer who spends most of his free time in his room playing computer games.

His mum Paula contacted the producers of Raised by the Village with her concerns and they decided to help out.

Paula told the show that “Karl is the baby of the house, he’s into games and spends a lot of time on his PC”.

His father and emergency technician Ed said his son is typically “up all night on his PC”.

“That has a knock-on effect and he’s causing rights within the family dynamic at home and just not participating,” he said.

Karl said playing video games is what makes him happy as it means he does not have to “deal with the stress of other people’s needs”.

Deciding things needed to change, the Mullingar teen was sent to the Hynes family dairy farm in Aherla, County Cork.

When Karl first met his host family, he handed over his mobile phone for the duration of the stay, as requested, but was soon rumbled and found to have been hiding a second phone in his bag.

Another hiccup soon followed when he failed to wake up on time for his first morning of work at the farm, but things soon picked up.

Karl found himself getting stuck into and enjoying the work, which included grooming and milking cattle, oiling udders and restoring dry stone walls estimated to be over 100 years old.

After completing the work and spending a few days in Aherla, Karl said he found “more things to be positive about” in life.

“There’s so many things to do I didn’t have time to be negative. The great outdoors has more to offer than I ever imagined,” he said.

Following his return to Mullingar, the local teenager was engaged more with his family and spent less time playing computer games – and he has since even gone back to visit the Hynes farm in Cork.