I farm: ”With my wife Trish, my son David and my daughter Katie. Trish is a qualified chef and was running a restaurant but now she’s farming with me full-time. She runs an Airbnb alongside the farm as well. We’re farming roughly 160ac in total, around 40ac of which is rented.”

Cows: “I’m milking 106 cows – they’re a mixture of Holstein and British Friesian. They milked very well up to 1 June but growth has been so bad. They’re getting 3.5kg in the parlour and luckily I haven’t had to feed silage.”

Breeding:”We’ll be finished breeding this week. We’re happy with how it went. This year we used all AI. We would have used between 70 and 80 sexed straws in total – all the maiden heifers and the earlier cows got sexed and then we switched over to beef AI. We’re using beef for the last six weeks now.”

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Sexed semen: “I think the technology has really advanced. Last year we used 70 straws and we wound up with 32 or 33 heifer calves so I’d be very happy with it.”

Grass growth: “Growth has been brutal. It’s been the most unusual year and there’s been a northern wind blowing the whole time. You could say we had no leafy grass really this year. It seemed to be all stem. We’ve about 40ac of first cut done and hope to get a second cut at the end of July.”

All Ireland:”It’s fantastic to be in it and it’s even more fantastic to have David hurling in it. There’s a great buzz around Clare. I was just talking to the relief milker for Sunday – that’s the most important job to have sorted. I played for Clare myself in the 1980s and 1990s. I started off at centre back and moved into the forwards but I was never as good as David, that’s for sure.”