The Irish Shows Association (ISA) recently launched an online virtual show in a bid to replace the many summer shows which should have been taking place throughout the country but had to be called off due to COVID-19.

The show is set to take place on the association’s website www.irishshows.org on 22 August and sees a total of 136 classes across all the sections.

ISA national secretary Jim Harrison said: “Look, it’s something – it’s not perfect, but it’s something. There are a few [virtual shows] happening across the water in the UK and Cork show has launched one too. It’s going to be something new for us all but it will be something to keep us occupied for the coming year.”

Competition

“There are competitions for everybody from horses, cattle, sheep right through to the dogs, indoor section like arts and crafts, baking, vegetables and even stuff for kids like Lego-building competitions.

“It was very hard to cover everything for cattle and sheep. We took it as overall pedigree classes and overall commercial classes. What we wanted was something for everyone. We could’ve gone about doing a 300- or 400-class show but we thought that it would take the whole day to run and people would get bored watching that on the day.

“We launched a new website last winter, it was going to be used differently but it has been changed around now for a virtual show set for 22 August.”

All details on classes and how to enter can be found at www.irishshows.org.