Balmoral Show day two: NI sheep-shearers 'among best in the world' says judge at 'epic' festival of animals and machines
Northern Ireland’s sheep-shearers are among the best in the world, a long-standing judge has said.
Tom Halloran, 60 and from Connemara in Co Galway, has competed in and/or judged sheep shearing for the last 40 years.
He spoke to the News Letter as he was preparing to oversee the second of two blade shearing heats, where four NI competitors each parted three squirming sheep from their fleeces using manual shears.
He recently returned from New Zealand, and asked how NI competitors stack up internationally, he said: “They’d be in the top. They’d be always in the top seven or eight in the world.”
As to what Balmoral means to him, he said: “It’s a get-together – it’s a huge social thing, you get to meet and make friends from all over the world.”
On the machinery side of the show nearby, Alastair Calderwood, director of RD Mechanical in Newtownabbey, was showing off one of their new machines: a giant remote-controlled lawnmower.
It works from up to 300 yards away and resembles one of the little automated mowers which have become common on big lawns, except it is much bigger, has tank-style caterpillar tracks, and can cut on slopes of up to 60 degrees which defeat other mowers.
They do “quite a bit of business” at the show, he said, adding this year’s unsettled weather seems not to have suppressed the crowds much.
The News Letter also caught up with DUP leader Gavin Robinson, who said: “I love the Balmoral Show. I've been coming since I was a child when it was at the King's Hall. It's an epic showcase of Northern Ireland - all that's good about our rural society.”
Read our main Balmoral day two article here: Social media farming celebrity among those doing brisk business