Strabane sheep shearer has Irish record in his sights

A STRABANE farmer will be making a record-breaking attempt to shear more than 708 lambs in nine hours later this month.

Tom Perry (33), who is a professional sheep shearer, will be attempting to beat the current Irish nine-hour solo lamb shearing record previously set by Stanley Allingham in 2019.

In order to do this, Tom will need to shear a lamb every 45 seconds across a gruelling nine hours.

Shearing has allowed Tom to travel worldwide for over ten years and he has been a finalist at many international ‘open’ shearing competitions.

He has also proudly represented his country, having previously been a member of the Northern Ireland team that won the Six Nations event at the Balmoral Show in 2022 and this year was crowned Royal Ulster National Champion.

Brendan Kelly, Ulster Wool chair, said, “Record attempts are an excellent opportunity to showcase the highly-skilled individuals driving the industry forward while also helping to promote the quality of our wool to wider audiences.

“As a key industry body, we are totally committed to supporting champions as representatives and ambassadors. We’re delighted to be supporting Tom to help him achieve his goal and wish him the very best of luck.”

The shearing record will take place on Saturday, July 29, at Rickamore Brae, Templepatrick, Co Antrim.

The day begins at 5am and finishes at 5pm.

It consists of five ‘runs’, the first of which is two hours in length while the remaining runs last one hour and 45 minutes each.

The whole event will be live-streamed on the day.

All proceeds will be donated to Rural Support, an agriculturally-minded charity, based in the North.