Frustration amid the fun and festivities as traffic chaos mars Balmoral's Friday instalment

The overturned cattle lorry on the M1 outside Dungannon just before 6am caused huge tailbacks as cars were pushed off the motorway and onto the A-road network to the south, which struggled to handle the volumes.

The summery sunshine was therefore a bit of a mixed blessing for some who had to spend much of the day in a roasting car.

Grace Foster from Fermanagh told the News Letter: "It took us over three hours and it was very frustrating, with five girls.

"But we got here in the end, and it is a really good show when you get here. A tough drive from Fermanagh – and hot."

Diane Burke, head of Nationalworld in Northern Ireland, which owns the News Letter, was caught in the chaos early in the morning.

She left Dungannon for the News Letter and Farming Life stand at the Balmoral Show, and after one hour and 20 minutes she was still 10 miles away from the Lurgan M1 closure.

"The traffic was going nowhere so I turned round to go back and work from home," she said.

Lucas Vogan, a resident of the Birches in County Armagh, was quoted as telling the BBC: "The rural roads which people were diverted onto aren't built for that volume of traffic, there has been total gridlock – delays of up to two hours and local residents couldn't get in and out if their houses.

"People just had to phone work and say they couldn't come – neighbours of ours missed their hospital appointments."

The fire brigade said that firefighters from Dungannon, Portadown and Armagh were at the scene alongside "specialist animal rescue teams from Omagh and Newcastle".

The Department of Infrastructure’s traffic alert service said that as of 9.45am “the live cattle have been moved to another lorry”, but “a small number of cattle have been put down”.

Yet it was not until about 4pm that the motorway began to re-open - and then only the westbound lanes.

David Doherty, area commander for the fire brigade, was quoted by BBC as saying the driver "is safe and well".

By yesterday evening, it was confirmed that, by coincidence, there was a separate cattle incident a day earlier in which a stray bull caused disruption to traffic in the south-east Tyrone region.

In that case, the animal got loose on the A4 dual carriageway between Dungannon and Ballygawley at about 4pm yesterday.

Footage has circulated online purporting to be from the incident, showing two police cars stopped on the carriageway as a policeman tries and fails to pacify the bull in the central reservation.

The PSNI said the bull was “humanely euthanised” to “protect the public”.

The News Letter understands it was shot.

Back at the Maze site itself, the president of the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society, John Henning, said: "The show at Balmoral this year is going really, really well. We're on day three, the crowds coming through the gate are fantastic and we're really blessed with superb sunshine and a buoyant mood in the agri-foods food sector."

DUP deputy first minister Emma Little-Pengelly said: "It has been absolutely fantastic. When you get good weather for Balmoral Show, it really does make it. It brings the crowds out, and that's good to see.

"So brilliant to see tens of thousands of people here over the course of the last number of days, supporting our fantastic agriculture and agrifood sectors in particular.

"We have some of the best produce anywhere in the world, and it's great to see them being supported here today, and over the course of the last number of days.

"It's also really important for us to be here because it's about us listening to the farming community and our producers. Because it's very much about listening to concerns they have and making sure that we're taking those into account...

"Really, really, big crowds. I understand... there's just over 33,000 here already today. That's a huge number of people coming in and enjoying what really does become even better every single year".

The 2025 show continues today – the last of its four days.