The enthusiasm of young members was celebrated, when the Cork Holstein Friesian Club took a break from the bad weather for their annual summer barbecue and herds competition prize-giving in Kinsale.

IF it’s Belgooly Show day, the sun will shine.

HORSE exhibitors from north and west Cork won two of the top awards at the 66th Belgooly Show last Saturday.

THE Seven Heads ranks amongst the most scenic, least spoiled areas of coastal west Cork.

THE prestigious breeders’ championship at the Fáilte Ireland Dublin Horse Show was won by west Cork exhibitors John and Cathal Dineen, Kilshinihan, Timoleague, with their seven-year-old chestnut, Kilshinihan Lass.

A THREE-YEAR-OLD bay gelding won the young horse championship for a Limerick exhibitor at Cork Summer Show.

AN estimated 12,000 people flocked to The Beaches in Bantry for the annual agricultural show last Sunday.

Newly-arrived visitors to Ireland, passing Inchy Bridge on the Argideen River at midnight, could be forgiven for drawing the wrong conclusions upon seeing a huddle of men in polaroid glasses standing about, hands deep in pockets or leaning on the parapet looking into the water below.

AQUILA, a five-year-old mare by Quiletto out of a Mr Lord mare, bred by Paul and Jan Turfery, Caheragh, owned by Brian Mangan, Fermoy, and ridden by Rose Marie Ahern, Carhue, Bandon, dominated the hunter classes at Clonakilty Show.

Magpies, evidently, are given to feeding on the thick coat of a horse, along with their jackdaw flying companions.

THE showing classes at the Fáilte Ireland Dublin Horse Show pulled in the spectators, who lined the rails for judging in the various finals.

IT’S been a very good July for Church Cross, Skibbereen dairy farmer Jerry Hegarty. A couple of weeks ago he won his second All-Ireland Intermediate Road-bowling title in a titanic man-to-man struggle with Ulster champion Harry Toal.

READ with interest the article on Cork County Council’s heritage development plan (Irish Examiner, June 9).

AS a lay theologian and historian, I was saddened to hear Bishop Murphy's judgment on parents he perceives as abusing the sacraments.

IT wasn’t quite the enclosure at Royal Ascot, but Sir David Hayes was quite at home at the Sinn Féin races at McCarthy’s Bar in Timoleague.

AS a taxpayer, I object in the strongest possible terms to the suggestion that legal costs for politicians such as Ray Burke and Liam Lawlor for giving information to the tribunals should be paid for by the taxpayers of this country.

ON Tuesday last, President Bush requested 77 billion dollars from the US Senate to fight the war in Iraq.