An Ardaghy farmer, who only as late as December last, described to Northern Sound the devastation of TB on his farm, has taken home two national awards for his pedigree herd. Testing at Padraic Greenan's Monaghan farm just before Christmas revealed TB reactors among his dairy herd and he had to cull 40 per cent of his stock. At the time he spoke openly about the financial and mental toll such news has on farming families.
Mr Greenan told Joe Finnegan a personal drive within him made him forge ahead with breeding 100 pedigree cattle and entering some of them into the Irish Holstein Friesian Association national awards. Now, seven months later, Padraic has bounced back to claim the Judges Choice Prize and first place in the herds over 80 cows in the national Irish Holstein Friesian Open Day competition.
Padraic also earned an honourable mention in a third category and another Monaghan farmer, Brian Corley, took third place in a heifer born in 2022 category. A delighted Padraic told the Joe Finnegan Show how he turned things around: "I suppose first and foremost you have to put it into perspective when it's outside the door of the house,which, is massive," Padraic told Northern Sound, Look, my interest's in breeding cows and the standard would have risen here at home as in the quality that I've seen coming through myself, and I was lucky enough, I had a good team of replacement stock coming in. People would've said to me: 'God, that was a massive result after taking a hit and then coming back from it and getting this award' but, I suppose it's a thing of just trying to achieve within myself; it's just a personal target of my own, driving on to do what I've done."
