A strong crowd of buyers and sellers gathered in Blessington Mart for the annual Wicklow Cheviot ram show and sale. There was a strong entry of 180 rams on the day with 150 of these rams being SIS eligible.

Demand remained high throughout the sale with just four rams remaining unsold giving the sale an overall average of 98%. Quality of the rams present was also high, with an average price of €900 a head achieved for the 176 rams sold. Buyers travelled from all over Ireland with rams selling to 20 different counties across Ireland.

The top priced lot came from the pen of Sean Corrigan, Baltinglass. This powerful hogget ram sold for €6,500 to a pedigree breeder from Donegal. The next top priced lot was the pre-sale show overall champion from Kildare man Jim Corrigan, that sold for €5,200.

Taking the top spot in the highly contested group of three class was Wicklow breeder Barry O’Neill. These three impressive hogget rams went on to sell for €3,000, €2,000 and €1,800.

In the aged ram section, it was a three-year-old ram from Tom Burke that took the red ribbon and sold for the top priced aged ram at €680.