I arrived in Northern Ireland late on Saturday where I was pick up by my host Glyn Surgenor from Hillsborough. He let me know the plan was to drive across the country for a birthday party and I asked, with great concern, how long it would take… he let me know it would be a looooong drive of 2hrs, LOL this would not even get me across Renfrew County. The birthday party was at The Bridge Inn in Tillrick. It was a “sh** shirt party”(or as I discovered in Canada it would be a very elaborate tacky shirt party) and there was a bunch of Young Farmers in attendance from across the country that I got to meet. They do go hard!
The next day we went out exploring the Mourne mountains and the dry-stone fence covering them. We saw Dromore Motte (or giant defensive hill) and Bailey (or the flat area for tents) which was built in 1177 as part of the Anglo-Norman occupation it one of the best-preserved Motto in Ulster. We then arrived at the ocean and stopped at lookout along the road to take in the amazing views and the smell of sea water. We then headed to Newcastle we got an ice cream and walked to see where Henry Ferguson flew August 8th 1910 in an aircraft he built. We head outside Newcastle to see the walking museum learning about all Henry Ferguson early year and inventions that lead to Massey Ferguson today. The next day a very big storm was happening, so we spent the day checking out the Titanic museum which had a lot of great information on the Industrial Revolution and how the American revolution lead to the success of the Linen industry in Northern Ireland. They had great walk through on all the step it took for the Titanic to be built. Afterwards the storm had passed we went on the Alpine slide in the hills of Belfast.
I then switched host to Rebecca and Will Cromie o Rathfriland. They live on 50 cow Holstein farm with a parlour. My first day we went to a brewery with same name as the one I am currently working for. It was interest to talk about the similarity and difference of the industry in different country. We then went to Hillsborough Castle, the Royal seat for the British Royal family where they stay when visiting Northern Ireland. We toured the expanse gardens and ground. We got a tour of the castle where we were told about its history and the art acquired over the year. We had lunch at small café just outside the castle and watch farmers haul hay silage past the castle. The next day we did farm tours that included Potterswalls Jersey that had great success at Balmoral show with the grand champion cow, The cow then classified 97, the first jersey in Northern Ireland in 32 years to classify that high. Since I am from a jersey farm and can appreciate how hard it is to win at a national show I was appropriately impressed! We than saw a 72 head rotary milking parlour that was milking 600 head of cows.Boggles my mind!
I then switch to my next host Joyce Allen of Moneymore. We started off by going to learn about a digestor run by three local farms. They built the digestor five years ago and had been using hay silage to run them at the beginning. The were than approached by pig abattoir about taking the animal waste left after butchering. They then switched over to using waste as with great success! They are getting free fuel for their digestor, and the abattoir has a safe and free way to dispose of waste. They have built two more digestor since the switch and are looking at adding another with a gas cleaning plant so they can also sell gas. We than head to her work at Swatragh Livestock Market. I helped Friday evening with the Diamond Spotties and Blue Texels pedigree sale. The next day was sheep sale day; I helped check and mark sheep for sale for the morning. This was a new experience for me as we have not had sheep for a while, and I never appreciated the work and effort that goes into the sale. I sure do now!! After a long day at the market, we got ready to go out to my first BBQ. BBQ are very large dance put on by YFCU clubs ever Saturday throughout the summer. They are great fundraiser for the clubs. On Sunday we had a traditional roast for lunch, we than went to check out Splash a large floating amusement park in an old quarry. It was a great way to relax and cool down!!
