The ladies were all lined up, backsides and bulging, ample udders facing their audience, their heads down, munching nonchalantly on fresh grass and silage.
“I wish I knew what they were looking for,” Briege Kelly from Mullagh remarked, wondering what might attract the eye of a judge.
“I wouldn’t know much about Baileys cows,” she confessed.
Embrace, originally from Canada and now residing in Raphoe, Co Donegal (with owner Roy Crombie), was being royally attended to by a team of pamperers, fussing to get her looking her very best for the 75th Virginia show’s premier event: the Diageo Baileys Irish Champion Dairy Cow contest. It’s a sort of lovely cow show for Holstein Friesians, hot on the heels of the Rose of Tralee.
The pampering included running electric clippers across her flanks, lest a single hair be out of place. The end of her tail was back-combed to give it a frivolous pom-pom look. Finally, an aerosol can of Final Mist livestock coat dressing was waved in the air, a coup-de-grace flourish accompanied by intense polishing of the udder.
Twizzle lets rip
Just then, Twizzle raised her tail stiffly, paused and let rip. A man rushed forward with a bucket and saved the day. The cow’s anus was wiped and polished with the sort of loving care a doting dad might lavish on a newborn baby.
“The mother of that cow went to Italy and was first in the European show,” said Mervyn Jones from Gorey, father of the owner.
Virginia’s annual show, a mix of serious agri-competitiveness and late summer rural fun, is hugely important to the Cavan town and is woven into the fabric and economy of the community. The showgrounds are right in the middle of the town, beside a school that was built originally with funds raised by the show society.
In glorious sunshine yesterday, more than 15,000 people from all over the midlands and north, including Northern Ireland, and beyond, streamed into the grounds. There were pens galore of beef and dairy cattle, specialist breeds such as Charolais, Simmental, Hereford, Aberdeen Angus, Salers, Belgian Blue and Limousin.
There were horses and ponies, and trade stands aplenty – much to attract the attention of a farming family, and loads for their children, too.
A pen of owls and birds of prey was one of the big hits.
Owner, Sam Rochford from Navan was showing off the progeny of Freddie, the marmalade-coloured ferret, some of whom were in his pocket. He plopped tiny ferrets into the arms of children, while Freddie luxuriated in the grass, tethered, under the watchful, and not wholly disinterested eye of Hedwig the barn owl.
Working ferret
Freddie is a working ferret, apparently, as evidenced from a recent visit to a 700-strong pig farm in Monaghan, home also to “about 900 rats”, said Mr Rochford. “I got 90 in a day and was knackered.” Freddie’s tally was not disclosed.
The afternoon culminated in the competition for the champion dairy cow trophy. Judge Kevin Wheelan made a detailed inspection of each of the 21 lumbering and highly polished Holstein Friesians put through their paces in the enclosure.
Third place (called "honourable mention") went to Ardnasalem Baltimore Robin, owned by Patrick Colton of Emyvale, Monaghan. Reserve champion was Evergreen Duplex Ebony, owned by Liam and Sandra Murphy of Bagenalstown, Carlow.
Twizzle’s unfortunate earlier incident in make-up did not stand against her. To the approval of all concerned, not least owners Philip and Linda Jones from Gorey, Co Wexford, she took top prize – Irish champion dairy cow – largely, said Mr Wheelan, because of her “high and wide” udder.
