This is a subscriber-only article
I farm: “Sucklers and sheep alongside my father Eddie in Garrison, Co Fermanagh. We farm 260ac of heavy land.”
The system: “We sell weanlings off the cows in Enniskillen Mart in autumn every year. We calve in spring and have mostly Charolais/Limousin cows and a Charolais bull. We sell lambs as stores in Enniskillen Mart and have Texel crosses and cross-bred ewes.”
Shearing bug: “I started to shear sheep when I was 19 and I travelled to New Zealand when I was 20. I wanted to learn how to do 200 a day and I gradually got the bug and I went back for seven years every year from November to March from 2005 to 2012. I then went for four seasons to Victoria in New South Wales in 2012-2015 shearing Merinos.
Breaking records: “I broke the Irish nine-hour lamb shearing record in Milltown, Co Cavan, on Sunday. It took massive organisation and a massive effort from myself. I was training for about 19 months in advance of the day. I sheared 708 lambs in the nine hours averaging 45.7 seconds/lamb between shearing and catching from the pen.”
Training: “For the past eight months I was up at 5am every morning. I have a home gym and I would start with stetching, then move to cardio work and finish on weights for about 45 minutes, then go to the farm or shear for the day.”
Quotable quote: “I believe that life is all about setting goals and achieving them. A piece of advice I got from the previous record holder Mark McGeown was to leave everything on the shearing stage, both emotionally and physically, after the competition last Sunday and that’s what I did.”
SHARING OPTIONS: