Winner of the Teagasc/FBD student of the year award for 2025 Robyn Dowling from Skerries, Co Dublin, told the Irish Farmers Journal that it was a great honour to be the first equitation student ever to win the overall prize.

“It’s a really big deal the fact that the equines are getting the recognition, it's brilliant,” she said.

Since finishing the level 6 advanced certificate in horsemanship (equitation) at Teagasc’s Kildalton College in Piltown, Co Kilkenny, last year, Dowling set up her own riding school last July on the farm that her grandfather owned.

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“Since it has opened, the riding school has expanded and it’s going really well, we have lovely kids and lovely ponies,” she said.

Speaking about her grandfather's farm, she said it is really special to keep it going in a different way.

She also spoke about her hopes to go on to complete a course in equine therapy next to broaden her knowledge and experience.

Praise

Dowling praised the equitation course in Kildalton College and said she would recommend it to anyone thinking about going down the coaching route and completing their British Horse Society assessments.

“Or if you would like to go down the young horse training and breaking route, I would really recommend Kildalton as well, it was my favourite part of the course and there’s not many places in the country where you can learn how to break a horse safely under full-time supervision,” she said.

Agriculture category

Cork native Edmund Motherway from Ladysbridge in Midleton took home the award for ‘full-time agriculture category’ following his studies in the level 6 advanced certificate in dairy herd management at Kildalton College.

After finishing up in Kildalton last year, Motherway said he went straight home to farm in partnership with his father on their dairy farm, which was set up in 2018.

Motherway spoke about how he and his father try to do all of the farm work in-house, including cutting silage.

“It was a huge achievement and I’m delighted. Kildalton is a great ag college and when I heard I was going to be the nominee, I couldn’t get over it. I would have put so many people in the college before myself. It’s a very strong college and strong agricultural area,” he said.

Last year’s winner

Winner of the Teagasc/FBD Student of the Year 2024 Kate Fitzgerald (née Curran) said she has had a very busy year since winning the award last year.

She became a National Dairy Council (NDC) ambassador and spoke at Bloom with Bord Bia among many other opportunities that have arisen over the past year.

“It’s great to be a woman that has won it and an ambassador, as it is the international year of the woman farmer,” she said.

Kate and her husband Shane Fitzgerald also won Tirlán milk supplier of the year for 2026 in recent weeks.

“It was absolutely mind blowing. It was like bringing me back 12 months ago to here when I was announced as the student of the year, it was a shock again,” she said.

She said they got a call that they won the farming ambassador award earlier in the year and they were delighted to bring people on to the farm to show where the milk comes from.

“To go on now and represent Tirlán in the NDC milk quality awards is a great honour,” she said.