Only sheep will be fleeced, promise Ministers

Sheep were gambolling outside the Department of Agriculture yesterday. Did this signal the return to the days of the militant farm protests?

French farmers herded sheep through the Louvre in Paris more than a week ago, so anything could happen.

Turns out, on closer inspection, it was not an IFA protest after all.

Instead, Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney, Minister for Public Expenditure, Brendan Howlin and Government Chief Whip Paul Kehoe had come together to announce details of the World Sheep Shearing Championships, which runs from May 17th to 25th in Gorey, Co Wexford.

As soon as Mr Coveney saw the penned sheep, he whipped off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves to get stuck in to the shearing. "They're a bit frisky," warned Mr Howlin, who left his jacket on. "Have you done this before?"

Little Bo Peep

Mr Coveney assured him he had. Still, perhaps wisely, he decided to leave the shearing to Brendan Graham, who will

compete at the championships. He whipped the wool off the sheep quicker than you would peel a banana.

Meanwhile, Little Bo Peep – aka Emma Shaw (11) – made sure her lambs didn’t get lost as they made a few bids to leap over the pen. All the while, ministerial minders fretted about the captions that might accompany the photographs as words such as fleecing were being bandied around.

The World Sheep Shearing Championships was last held in Ireland in 1998 so it was a coup to get it back, according to George Graham, host chairman of the championships.

Olympics of shearing
He said it was an even bigger coup to sign up competitors from China and Russia as neither country had participated in the world contest before. "I like to think of it as the Olympics of sheep shearing," he said.

More than 300 entrants are coming from all over the world to compete over four days of competitions. Countries represented will include Lesotho, Japan, Australia, South Africa and the US. Farmers from all over the country have agreed to lend some 6,600 sheep to the festival for shearing .

The organisers expect more than 40,000 visitors and have built a week-long festival around the shearing. It will include a Good Food Ireland village where people will be able to eat their way around Ireland with artisan foods on offer.