A farmyard crawling with security men, crowd control barriers and a High Court injunction handed to everyone who entered is not your typical setting for a cattle sale.

The auctioneers at the Cradenhill dispersal sale on Tuesday, Denis A Barrett, ran two rings side by side in the two-acre farm shed. While online bidding was facilitated, most purchases were made on-site. One ring sold the in-calf heifers, dry cows and milking cows, which were mostly in the region of 600 to 1,100 euro guineas. The other ring auctioned off the calves, maidens and served heifers. Typically, calves sold for 200 to 300 euro guineas, with one notable exception making 1,100 euro guineas. Served heifers ranged from 900 to 1,300 euro guineas.

The sale was expected to attract a number of overseas buyers given the fame of the award-winning Cradenhill herd and all animals were cleared for immediate export.

While there were a number of UK registration plates, it seemed that most buyers were from the island of Ireland with a number of them from Northern Ireland.

“Everyone understands about the day after a funeral, it’s a different kind of a day, it’s a reality day and that’s where we are today,” said Peter Kingston.

Injunction

Disruption to the sale was prevented by a High Court injunction restraining Jerry Beades and “any other members acting in concort with the organisation known as the land league and the new land league”.

“We were here to protest with the machinery men and the creditors,” said Beades, who maintained that he has not received a signed copy of the injunction. “It was brought to our attention that the sheriff spent €1.5m since they took over possession of the farm and the debt was only €2.4m so what we were out to do was to expose the farming community to what was going on here.”

The gardaí and security men kept the protestors away from the sale, but they were unable to stop them from discouraging people to go to it.

Listen to an interview with anti-eviction activist Jerry Beades below

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