Shear delight for contest as more than 6,600 sheep rounded up

Call off the sheep. That’s the request from the organisers of the Golden Shears World Sheep-Shearing Championships which has been inundated with calls from farmers offering sheep for shearing.

On Monday The Irish Time s reported that organisers of the event in Gorey, Co Wexford, were looking for farmers to pledge 1,000 sheep to the event to help them meet their target of 6,000. Yesterday, they had received promises of more than 6,600 sheep from as far away as Donegal, Kerry and Mayo.

A spokeswoman for the event said: “To borrow the nursery rhyme, our three bags are definitely full. We want to thank farmers for their great support.”

Champion shearers from 30 countries are expected to attend this years’s championships, which begin on May 17th.