A Conference entitled Cattle in Ireland: Beef, Bulls, Butchers and Biodiversity organised by the Agricultural History Society of Ireland will be held in Birr, Co. Offaly on 14th and 15th June.
This two-day conference includes a full programme of lectures on Saturday 14th June and a day-long excursion on the Sunday. As well as providing an overview of early cattle in Ireland from a variety of viewpoints, the lectures will address issues such as beef as a food, butchering and the consumer interest, and cattle farming in relation to biodiversity and sustainability.
The conference organisers, the Agricultural History Society of Ireland (www.ahsi.ie), have invited leading experts from the island of Ireland to address the conference. Professor Jim McAdam from AFBI is one of the guest speakers. On the Saturday, in addition to the lectures, there is a poster session featuring subjects relevant to the theme of the conference. The first day ends with a conference dinner in the County Arms Hotel, Birr, where the conference is based.
On the Sunday, there will be a full-day excursion focussed on the Shannon lowlands of Co. Offaly. The emphasis is on species-rich grasslands including those on dry esker ridges and wet grasslands that constitute the Shannon callows. The excursion will be led by the widely acknowledged farming and wild-life expert, Dr John Feehan, assisted by Dr Caitriona Maher who has recently completed a PhD on the Shannon callows.
The conference brings together experts from a wide range of disciplines including archaeology, biology, genetics, agricultural science, and also practitioners (farmers, animal breeders and butchers), as well as historians. It thus provides a great opportunity to hear from the experts, interact with them and engage in discussions on such diverse issues as to when cattle were first introduced to Ireland, the earliest farmsteads in western Europe at Céide Fields, and cattle rearing, beef production and consumption in recent and not-so-recent times in Ireland and further afield.
There are still some places available at the conference as well as the possibility of presenting relevant material in poster format. Details regarding conference programme, registration and possibilities of poster presentation are available at www.ahsi.ie.
Professor Michael O’Connell, Chairperson, AHSI