Outside Elphin, Co. Roscommon is Sinead Flanagan, who is the 2022 Aldi Irish Angus Junior Stockperson of the Year.
Ahead of the competition’s 2023 national finals, which are set to take place at the Iverk Show on August 26, Agriland paid a visit to Sinead’s family farm to find out more about how she developed her passion for showing cattle and honed this passion into a national title.
Her father Padraig established the Lismacool Herd prefix in 1998 when he started producing pedigree Shorthorn cattle and broadened the herd to include pedigree Angus cattle in 2014.
The Lismacool Angus and Shorthorn Herd is now run by Padraig and his wife Liz, with the help of their daughters Sinead and Katie.
Sinead bought her first heifer seven years ago at a sale in Ennis.
“It was a Shorthorn heifer and I have bred a few great calves from her,” she said.
“I then bought an Angus heifer off my uncle and have since bred a heifer calf off her which I also plan to retain for breeding.”
In 2019, Sinead competed in agricultural shows across Ireland. “Before that, we had only entered a few local shows with the Shorthorn calves,” she said.
“We won an all-Ireland title with an Angus bull Lismacool Samson in Strokestown Show that year. It was judged by Shane McKiernan,” she said.
“I entered the young handler competition that year but I was new to it all and didn’t have much experience.”
When Covid-19 came in 2020, she was at a loss at the weekends. “We didn’t know what to do with ourselves when we were at home every weekend,” she said.
She was delighted when agricultural shows made a return again in 2022.
“We went back at the showing last year. I don’t think there was a weekend when we were at home, between all the shows,” she said.
“This year has been busy but we’re only getting into it rightly now. Our calves are young still. We usually only start at Bonniconlon Show but we attended Mullingar and Longford also this year.
“Last year, I entered the Aldi Irish Angus Junior Stockperson of the Year competition at Bonniconlin Show and I qualified to the finals at Iverk Show.”
The competition is sponsored by Aldi and ABP Food Group and boasts first-prize winnings of €1,000. It is run in conjunction with the Irish Angus Cattle Society.
“There was a questionnaire and we had to demonstrate our knowledge and skill of showing Angus cattle,” Sinead said.
Sinead was announced as the overall 2022 winner of this event and also went on to win two other young handler titles at shows in Strokestown and Limerick that year.
She said that her success has been “an unreal experience” and she encouraged other young people with an interest in showing cattle to get involved.
Last year Sinead also attended the 2022 Shorthorn World Conference which took place in the UK, which she said had a youth-development aspect to it.
“We did a few competitions over there like stock judging and things like that. We travelled all through England and parts of Wales over the course of two weeks and it was just an amazing experience,” she said.
Commenting on her passion for showing cattle, she said: “It’s a brilliant experience and you meet so many people through it. I think some people think we’re crazy to go away showing cattle every weekend but I really enjoy it.”
Looking to the future, Sinead hopes to develop and grow her passion for pedigree cattle and has plans to add further to her family’s pedigree herd.