The nightmare for farmers in the Republic of Ireland became reality yesterday, when two sheep in Co Louth were found to have tested positive for foot-and-mouth disease.
The suspect flock belong to Mr Michael Rice from Jenkins town, four miles from Dundalk. Immediately after confirmation of the first outbreak in the Republic, the 10-km exclusion zone set up on Wednesday night was tightened, as containing and eliminating the virus became the primary objective.
Yesterday afternoon the culling of 4,000 animals began. Priority was given to the 650 sheep and 150 cattle on the six Rice family holdings scattered around the Cooley Peninsula.
The possibility that practically every animal on the Cooley Mountains could be killed was being mooted last night.
Within one kilometre of the infected flock all susceptible animals will be slaughtered by today. These include sheep, cattle, pigs and goats. In addition, all sheep within 3km of the infected sheep are to be slaughtered.
The carcasses of the livestock on Rice holdings will be buried in massive trenches on the land. Other cattle were being brought to a nearby abattoir in Ravensdale for slaughter and rendering. A spokesman for the Department of Agriculture said most of the sheep would be rendered and the remainder burned. The Minister, Mr Walsh, called it "an aggressive, strategic slaughter".
"Families will have to sit around their tables at teatime and look out at their slaughtered livestock. It is dreadful," said Mr Johnny Butterly, chairman of the IFA livestock committee in Co Louth.
Local farmers accepted it. Some welcomed it if it would prevent the virus getting a hold, he said.
"Now it has broken, it has to be dealt with by whatever means possible. I expect my herd will be slaughtered. If so, the sooner the better," said Mr Ronan Traynor, a part-time farmer with a herd of pedigree Simmental cattle.
The foot-and-mouth case in Meigh, Co Armagh, is only four miles from where the infected Louth flock was grazing. There is no evidence that the two flocks were in contact with each other. Yesterday the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs, Mr Ahern, a TD for the area, said the virus was "insidious and hard to contain".
"Nobody knows how it got here. This will mean further hardship and devastation for the area but we have to accept it," he said as he visited the control centre established by the Department of Agriculture.
The centre is within the exclusion zone around the Meigh farm. That is now overlapping with the exclusion zone around the Rice family home at Jenkinstown.
Many farmers said they were already used to the strict curbs on moving livestock and some believed this had helped to prevent an outbreak until now.
This consolation did not diminish the impact on the local farming community.
"I feel badly. It will have a lot of impact for me because I am just a small cattle farmer. It is a disaster really, because I cannot sell anything," said Mr Seamus Hanratty from Hackballscross.
At the farmstead in Jenkins town neither Mr Rice, his wife nor family of adult children were prepared to speak to the international press. They are confined to the house under the restrictions.
At the farm entrance the sign warned of foot-and-mouth, and two gardai, wearing disposable white boiler suits, told reporters not to get out of the car or remain in the area.
The Rice family are highly thought of in the Cooley Peninsula farming community. "He is clean," is how fellow farmers described him.
An additional 13 checkpoints manned by gardai and Department of Agriculture officials are in place along the southern and western boundary of the exclusion zone. It now covers Dundalk town and south to the mouth of the Fane River.
Vehicles approaching Dundalk from the south were sprayed with disinfectant. In the coming days, the rest of the community in Louth will feel the effects of just one case of foot-and-mouth.