I farm:"On 110 acres in Taylor’s Cross Co. Offaly. We rent a further 30 acres and have a further 40 acres of forestry. We also own a B+B down the road at Shannon Harbour for the past 14 years."

Beef: "We keep 82 British Friesians. We have a 12 unit milking parlour. It’s a hectic time on the farm at the moment - 50 of the cows have calved in the past 14 days."

Calving: "We try to have a compact calving season, starting on January 10th. We keep 20 replacement heifers and sell the rest of the heifers along with all of the bull calves. We run a Hereford and a Friesian bull with the cows and a Freisan bull with the heifers. There is great comfort in leaving the farm in the evening and not having to worry about heat detection. Trevor Dudley has supplied me with top quality bulls for the past number of years."

Twins: “Last Tuesday week, a three year old second calver gave birth to a Hereford bull and a Friesian heifer calf with minimal assistance. I have been told that this is a very rare occurrence having two calves from the one cow with different sires. Thankfully both calves are doing very well.

B&B: "We have been running the B&B, Harbour Masters House, for the past 14 years. Business is going really well at the moment and has done so for the past while. It takes up alot of time; therefore it is necessary to be as efficient on the farm as possible to deal with the additional workload."

Feed: “We get in a local contractor to make the silage, spread the slurry, and carry out any other such operations.”

Family: “My wife Grainne runs the B&B. She puts in a huge amount of work into the business. My son John is an electrician, Sinead and Darragh work in Galway and Conan is involved in engineering works and has a shed at the bottom of the yard.”

Quotable quote: “Only for I saw the calves being born I wouldn’t have believed that the Hereford bull and Friesian calf came out of the same cow. It just goes to show that nature never fails to impress.”