Midlands students bring calves home from Ploughing!

FOUR girls attending Mercy Secondary School in Kilbeggan returned from the Ploughing with five calves.

The school was one of just five from 140 all over the country chosen as finalists for this year's Certified Irish Angus schools competition.

The competition's aim is to encourage second level students to gain an understanding about the considerable care and attention that is required to produce and market the highest quality beef for consumers.

As a result, Sinead Bracken, Mary Ellen Colton, Chloe McDermott and Trasa Bracken from Mercy Secondary School, Kilbeggan were awarded five Irish Angus calves, worth an estimated €3,500 in total.

As part of an ongoing project the Kilbeggan students are undertaking in advance of the Leaving Certificate, the calves were brought to Sinead and Trasa Bracken's family farm for rearing.

The theme of the girls' project is ‘Exploring the opportunities of low carbon beef’ and for three days at the National Ploughing Championships they manned a stand demonstrating how Irish farmers can produce the most sustainable beef by following their sustainable five-point plan while also educating consumers and farmers about carbon sequestration on farms.

The girls are also organising a competition involving the local primary school to name the calves.

Students from all five participating schools will benefit financially from their cattle rearing and a final presentation of their projects will be made to a panel of agricultural and food industry experts before an overall winner is selected.

One school will then be chosen as the overall winner and will receive an additional €2,000 payment towards the students' further education.

At the Ploughing, the calves were presented to the Kilbeggan students by TikTok influencer and RTE broadcaster Mary-Claire Fitzpatrick.

The other schools which reached the final were Ursuline Secondary School, Thurles, Manor House School, Dunshaughlin Community College and St Colman's College, Fermoy.