Cork students make it to Certified Irish Angus Schools Competition finals
(Right to left) Teacher Mary O’Riordan with students Niamh O’Sullivan, Ellen O’Neill, Lucy Kirby and Ciara O’Driscoll with their project mascot Eire the Angus. Picture: Larry Cummins
A team of 'Angus Advocates' from Clonakilty has secured a spot in the finals of the Certified Irish Angus Schools Competition.
The four classmates, Niamh O’Sullivan, Ellen O’ Neill, Lucy Kirby, and Ciara O’Driscoll from Sacred Heart Secondary School, hope to use the competition to increase awareness of the Irish Angus breed.
The Certified Irish Angus Schools Competition, which is run with partners ABP and Kepak, aims to educate second-level students about the care and attention required to produce Certified Irish Angus Beef while also inspiring students to consider the Irish agri-food industry as a valuable career choice.
The all-female group entered the competition in October 2023 when they were in Transition Year. The Clonakilty-based team entered with their project theme of 'Increasing Awareness of the Certified Irish Angus brand'.
The students aimed to build awareness among both farmers and consumers. The group identified gaps in farmers' knowledge in this area and a lack of awareness as to where to access the necessary information.
Despite the whole group coming from dairy farm backgrounds, the girls threw themselves into advocating for the beef breed, designing a breeding checklist for dairy farmers and a buying checklist for beef farmers, with the focus being to improve the quality of beef calves coming from the dairy herd.
The group hopes that by improving farmers' knowledge surrounding DBI (Dairy Beef Index) and CBV (Commercial Beef Value) this will lead to an improvement in the quality of beef calves born in Ireland.
This will help to retain these quality beef animals in the country, while gaining the farmer a good price for the animal, which will in turn benefit the consumer with beef of the highest quality produced sustainability.
The team aim to increase awareness by focusing their research on understanding the impact of CBV on animal performance figures, highlighting how the Angus breed helps increase the reproductive efficiency of a farm.
This will also show why the beef sector is so important to the Irish economy and how farmers can increase profits on their farms by breeding Angus cattle, and creating an educational tool for consumers around their mascot “Éire the Angus.”
After a successful video entry and interview stage held at Teagasc Moorepark, the students were shortlisted to present their project in Croke Park in March 2024. That April, they were announced as one of five finalist groups from the initial 170 entries.
As part of the competition, they took a study trip at the end of March this year with the other four groups in the competition to give the finalists a deeper understanding of the agri-food industry and to present their projects.
As part of this trip, the finalists visited Tesco Headquarters, Bord Bia, Airfield Estate, Hilton Foods and Teagasc Grange. For the final part of the trip, they travelled to the European Parliament in Brussels to present their project to MEPs and met with Noel Banville of the IFA.
Discussing their journey in the competition so far, Ellen O’Neill said: “To be honest, there have been so many highlights from this competition, narrowing it down would be hard, but we all really enjoyed our research trip to Dublin and Brussels.
"I think that we gained a lot of insight into the agrifood industry and just how there's so much variety out there when it comes to careers in agriculture.”
The advocate’s work didn’t end there. Now with their finalist status, the group received a mini herd of five Irish Angus calves, which they were tasked to raise.
The students received four bullocks and a heifer at the National Ploughing Championships last year. The herd affectionately dubbed ‘The Tribe’ in reference to the calves’ sire, ‘Drumcrow Tribesman,’ are dairy beef calves.
The calves, Tóirneach, Réalt, Inis, Bua and Ériu have been reared by the students since last September and are housed at Miss Kirby’s home farm in Barryroe. As part of the competition, the calves are eventually sent for slaughter.
There are mixed emotions from the girls regarding the slaughter of their animals. The girls have spent many hours minding their ‘Tribe’, with feeding and weighing taking priority.
“It'll have to be very sad to see them go, we've had them now so long and we've really enjoyed rearing them. But at the same time, we're so grateful for the opportunities that we had, even just to gain experience of what it's like raising beef cattle,” Ms O’Neill said.
The students have also been very busy raising awareness and promoting their theme through attending and organising promotional events.
This March, they organised 'A Taste of Certified Irish Angus' Gala Dinner in Fernhill House Hotel. The event aimed to raise awareness of Certified Irish Angus Beef, which was served on the night, and guest speakers helped educate attendees on sustainable beef production.
The event raised over €2000 for local charity Cancer Connect, a county-wide not-for-profit, which provides free transport to Cork hospitals for patients undergoing cancer-related treatments.
The students have since raised a further €1500 for the charity from hosting events at Clonakilty and Barryroe Agricultural Shows this summer.
The final round of judging for the Certified Irish Angus Schools Competition will be taking place in March 2026 in Croke Park where the winning group will be announced.
Reflecting on the competition, Ms O’Neill said: “I would recommend this to other TYs. The opportunities and the insights into the industry we've gained are huge.
"We [The Angus Advocates] were all friends before, but it brought us together in that way. The friendships you form and even with the other groups in the competition are great, we’ve become very friendly with the other finalists.”
Giving some parting advice for students or schools who would want to get involved in the Certified Irish Angus School Competition in the future, Ms O’Neill said: “Just keep working at it, you know, put your best foot forward and just really try your hardest and have fun with it.”
