New competitions entertain hundreds of visitors to Tiree Agricultural Show
FRIDAY’S Tiree Agricultural Show drew in 800 visitors and islanders on a ‘blessed’ dry and sunny day, after the Tiree Music Festival wash-out the weekend before.
The show, which started in 1877, took place at Tiree Rural Centre, Crossapol, on July 22. Rosemary Omand, treasurer of the organising Tiree Agricultural Society, said: ‘We used to call it the busiest event in Tiree before Tiree Music Festival. I think it’s busier than last year.’
This year saw many new competitions, including a scarecrow contest, won by Jarleth, Ailish and Katie-Jane MacKechnie of Heylipol, with Evan Omand winning second for his ‘crofter and son’. Tiree Young Farmers’ Club organised a roll-a-bale competition, won by Sheena MacKinnon and Duncan MacLean, and there was a new contest called ‘a pie, a pint and a sheep’, where competitors ‘eat a pie, drink a pint, and shear a sheep’.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was won by Tiree sheep shearer Colin MacKinnon of Kilkenneth, since he was the only person to enter. ‘Winning wasn’t easy,’ he joked after shearing five sheep, but he promised to reward himself with a pie and a pint afterwards. The Tiree Trust put on a hoopla game to celebrate the £1m raised over five years by community-owned wind turbine ‘Tilly’ at Ruaig Sliabh. The nearby stall tent was full of island enterprises, including paintings by 25-yearold animator Amanda Worsley from Cornaig, who is funding a career in character design. ‘Tiree show is the best,’ enthused Poppy Scotland volunteer Elspeth Gillies of Kenovay at the next table. ‘It’s a meeting place. There are visitors who come every year.’ One such person is retired college lecturer Jane Syme, 76, who visits from Galloway to paint and sell watercolour and ink postcards. ‘People are so kind,’ she said. ‘I would never be lost in extremis. Tiree is so photogenic. I find the annual pilgrimage helps me pay for the sherry.’
Music was provided by the Argyll Ceilidh Trail, a ceilidh band of young traditional musicians aged 16-19, who play throughout the Hebrides in summer, including the after-show dance in An Talla.
Ms Omand, on behalf of the committee, thanked all the sponsors for the prize money and raffle prizes, including a Tiree painting donated by Annine MacLean of Mannal, which raised £160 at auction for show funds. Archie Cameron also donated a shepherd’s crook for auction, which was sold for £130 to the show’s announcer Donald MacArthur, a crofter at Middleton. ‘We usually get between 800 and 1,000, which is good for a small island,’ Mr MacArthur said, adding via the microphone: ‘The island is dependent on cattle and sheep. Agriculture and tourism are split 50:50 in terms of income. We would not have so many visitors if it were not for the agriculture, so thank you all for coming.’
A Suffolk ewe bred by Fraser MacLean of Heylipol Farm won supreme champion in the sheep section. A prime lamb, donated for auction by Heylipol Farm, raised £350 for cancer charity CLIC Sargent, with United Auctions paying for the slaughter and butchery.
Archie John MacLean of Heylipol’s Charolais-cross bullock calf won supreme champion in the cattle class and the Champion of Champions in all livestock sections. The champion pet, a Border collie called Coll belonging to Claire Kennedy of Ruaig, came second. Coll celebrated his triumph by lunging at the nearby poultry champion, Rodney the Rhode Island Rooster, who squawked the collie back into place. Clutching the magnificent cockerel in the show ring, owner Rhoda Meek reflected on their day: ‘I have never been so humiliated in all my life –and neither has Rodney.’