GREAT DAY FOR THE IRISH

Press, 28 March 1980, Page 16

GREAT DAY FOR THE IRISH

It was a pretty good day for the Irish at the preworld Charolais convention show and sale at Hamilton on Monday of last week and it should have been for it was also St Patrick’s Day. For diminutive, whitehaired Mr Bart J. Monaghan, of the Meath herd in the county of Meath in the Irish Republic, the occasion was quite a notable one for Meath Impeacher, a bull that he bred and which was born on July 17, 1973, was senior male and overall male champion and reserve overall champion. Mr Monaghan, who was at the convention last week, recalled that the bull had been given its name because at the time of its birth former President Nixon of the United States was having his troubles. Meath Impeacher was last week carrying the colours of Mr Jim Gunn, from the Kilernan stud at Maungaturoto in Northland, who comes originally from the Old Country — he was born in London

— and who has been 13 years in New Zealand after 20 years in India growing coffee and 12 years in Australia before that.

And if. that was not enough, the supreme champion of the show, a cow exhibited by the Lomas Partnership, of Napier, w'as also of Irish extraction.

While in Auckland Mr Monaghan examined a telephone directory'. He commented that there were as many Monaghans as he would have found back home.

At the start of the annual meeting of the International federation of associations of Charol?,is breeders last week Mr Monaghan earned praise from the retiring world president, Mr J. M. Sutherland, of Waimate, when he called for a constructive approach to problems facing the delegates, which was timely in the light of the lively meeting that followed that was not notable for unanimity.