The best part of growing up on a farm was the freedom. Our farm in Portaferry, Co Down was quite different for the time in that my father was a full-time teacher.

At one stage we were running 180 suckler cows and probably finishing 150-250 head of cattle. Although a part-time farm, the scale would rival a lot of full-time operations. I suppose that was indicative of having five kids that were just mad about farming.

Both my brothers and one of my sisters are vets while my other sister works in the local shop and lives at home.

The best part was definitely the evening driving home with all the jobs done. Even if you were on the tractor harvesting or rowing until two o’clock in the morning, there was a great sense of fulfilment in getting up the next morning and seeing what you’d done.

Personally, I hated school. I struggled the whole way through and failed exams because one, I didn’t see the point and two, when I was about 20, I was diagnosed as having quite bad dyslexia.

I was very lucky that farming gave me a great interest. Other than my father was a teacher, I would have left school the day I turned 16 and gone farming. My father said: ‘You can come home farming any day you want but you’ll get your education first.’

I didn’t get enough points in the A levels to do a degree, so I went to Greenmount Agricultural College to do a Higher National Diploma.

My education for the first 18 years was a bit of a slow start, but when I walked into Greenmount it changed my view. The lightbulb just went on. I started learning things I could apply to my own life. Because of my dyslexia, I have to be able to visualise and talk about things to learn – I can’t learn from a textbook, from just reading words.

One of my life’s aims is to raise awareness about dyslexia. I’m very open about the subject because if one person reads this and thinks ‘Is that my son or daughter? Is that me?’, that helps. We think differently and dyslexics have a great way of breaking complicated things down.

Greenmount was fantastic for me because it was a very practical course and I ended up completing a BSC honours in Harper Adams four years later and then being awarded a Nuffield scholarship to look at different farming systems abroad. I travelled all over Europe and New Zealand and at 21, was one of the youngest Nuffield scholars.

I then went into the meat processing industry for two years. It’s a tough, tough industry – you’re going from dealing with retailers to standing on a line, deboning and slaughtering animals, so it can be a challenging environment for a young person. It taught me the value of hard work and cost efficiency, so was hugely educational.

Following that, I was a beef specialist with Teagasc in Athenry, where I had the fantastic privilege of working with guys like Liam Fitzgerald, Johnny Whoriskey and Gerry Scully there. Plus Athenry is where I met Joan, my wife.

I’ll never forget sitting in the office one day when I got a phone call from Matt Dempsey – I’d never spoke to the man before. I’d seen him on a bus at the Oxford Farming Conference, that was our only contact and I remember ringing my father that night to tell him I was sitting on the same bus as Matt Dempsey!

Rare opportunity

Matt asked if I’d go up to see him some day. I walked into the office and in Matt’s typical style, he looked over the pile of books on his desk and said: ‘Justin, John Shirley is leaving us, do you want his job?’

John was a hero of mine because I grew up reading him every week. I think I spent the next hour trying to persuade Matt that I shouldn’t get the job because I was dyslexic, I was this, I was that. Matt just said: ‘Look, the job is yours if you want it.’

I remember seeking Gerry Scully’s counsel and telling him in confidence that Matt had offered me this job. He said: ‘Justin, it’s seldom opportunities like this come around. If you’re not challenged in a job, stop doing it.’

I’ve always thought of that when jobs and days are challenging. He also gave me the best piece of advice I ever received which was to ‘write every article as if you’re talking to your Dad.’

This is something I always tell every new member of the Irish Farmers Journal staff – ‘Always remember, the more you know about something, the simpler you make it.’

Never go down the route of making something complicated to show how smart you are. Smart people make complicated things simple.

I am incredibly lucky to work with great people in the Irish Farmers Journal and never envisaged that I’d end up in the role that I’m in. I was probably the most unqualified newspaper editor ever! To this day, writing is a challenge.

I’m hugely honoured to lead a team that understands the reader and rural Ireland comes first.

There hasn’t been a member of the Irish Farmers Journal in the office in six weeks. Everyone is working from home, scattered across 32 counties, but it’s been a chance to show what we’re made of and our ‘no problem, we’ll get it done’ attitude.

Balmoral

Balmoral was our local show growing up. There’s a famous photo in our house of myself and my older brother standing up on a combine harvester at Balmoral with groovy hairstyles and short pants. It was actually the day we both got lost and had to be reacquainted with our parents by the police service!

There’s always a realisation at some point as to just where your career has taken you and Balmoral is that for me. It’s a place I started going to when I was three, so to be there hosting a breakfast for industry leaders really makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

It gives a sense of grounding – going from being a three-year-old, mesmerised by the size of the combine to being a major part of this show, as the Irish Farmers Journal now is. It makes me hugely humble, but also hugely proud as well.

The great thing growing up on a farm in Northern Ireland was the ability for agriculture to cross political divides. Although we were only 28 miles from Belfast, I was oblivious to the Troubles growing up. Politics was never an issue with our friends, our neighbours and you see that in Balmoral too. It’s a show with a special connection and one that will be sadly missed this year.

One thing I’ve realised through the COVID-19 pandemic is how much we’ve taken for granted – maybe it’ll help us appreciate what’s important in life a little more. Jobs that we may ignore or think are less important in society, they’re the jobs that have become extremely important. I think when this is over, we shouldn’t forget that or forget those people.

Justin McCarthy was in conversation with Susan Finnerty.