Four Clonakilty year students who are finalists in the Certified Irish Angus Schools competition have said a fond farewell to the five dairy beef cattle they had been rearing, after they were sent for slaughter earlier this week.
By Kieran O’Mahony
Known as the ‘Angus Advocates’ Niamh O’Sullivan (Ballygurteen), Ellen O’Neill (Ballineen), Lucy Kirby (Barryroe) and Ciara O’Driscoll (Ballinacarriga) are fifth year students in Sacred Heart Secondary School, and entered the competition while they were in Transition Year in 2023.
Following a successful video entry and progression from the interview stage they were announced as one of the five finalist groups out of an initial 170 entries.
The Certified Irish Angus Schools competition, which is run in conjunction with partners ABP and Kepak, aims to educate second level students about the care and attention required to produce Certified Irish Angus Beef.
The four students received their five Irish Angus calves, four bullocks and one heifer, at the National Ploughing Championships last September and they affectionately named them Tóirneach, Réalt, Inis, Bua and Ériú. They had been rearing them on Lucy’s family farm in Barryroe up until this week.
Speaking to The Southern Star, Lucy Kirby said they are of course sad to see the five cattle go to slaughter but is pragmatic too, acknowledging that it’s the whole point of this competition.
‘We’ve seen how they have come along since we got them last September. They nearly doubled their weight and we got them named and all,’ said Lucy. ‘We are all from farming backgrounds and we asked our teacher Ms O’Riordan if she would help us enter the competition when we were in Transition Year. We were all very involved with the cattle.’
The four students got a full tour of the ABP factory in Bandon on Tuesday and will receive a full report on their five cattle following their slaughter.
‘Once we get the results from the report we’ll start working on our research project in early September.
‘We learned more about the farm to fork process and it was very interesting too, as we would all be looking to work in the agriculture in the future.’
The final round of judging will be taking place in March 2026 in Croke Park, Dublin, where the winning group will be announced.
