Big Bertha: the celebrity Kerry cow that captured the nation

As the cow ambled in the front door of the Blackwater Tavern, a little boy in the crowd was walking somewhat too close to the beast’s nether quarters for his mother’s liking.

“Brian, stand back in case she’d deposit,” she cautioned.

This was no ordinary cow and this was no ordinary Monday morning in the rural bar, located between the village of Sneem and Moll’s Gap. Big Bertha, the oldest cow in the world, had reached the ripe old age of 47 the previous day, 9 March 1992. She might have been toothless and geriatric, but Bertha had leapt into the Guinness Book of Records not only for her longevity but also for her lifetime breeding, with 39 calves to her credit. The Blackwater Tavern, Bertha’s local, was heaving with humanity that Monday morning to celebrate bovinity elevated to celebrity status.

Social assignments do not come any more glitzy for this journalist, who had been dispatched from Killarney to record the birthday celebrations of the speckled cow that had first gained a hoofhold in the national imagination in 1986.

Even the national broadcaster had ventured outside the Pale to “milk” the occasion. RTÉ’s Joe Duffy, who was given the honour of hosting an outside broadcast for The Gay Byrne Show, dedicated exclusively to the long-lived cow, was told all about milk music – drumming the bottom of buckets during milking time. Music, song and storytelling with an elemental theme set the national airwaves crackling.

“The bull is nearly extinct,” Kenmare storyteller Nancy Price told Duffy. “It’s the man with the white collar and tie.”

“Did the cows miss the bull?” the Dub mused.

“Miss the bull?” Gay Byrne slagged him at the other end of the line. “You daft eejit.”

Tralee singer Christie Hennessy serenaded Bertha, who leaned her head dreamily beside a creamy pint on the bar counter. Her owner, Jerome O’Leary, a bachelor farmer, stood beside her, beaming proudly.

While Jerome clearly enjoyed all the attention that came with Bertha’s celebrity status, he had an innate sense of generosity that elevated the experience far beyond a publicity stunt.

He teamed up with Donie Riney, Sneem, and Pat O’Connell, Killarney, each battling cancer, to raise more than £50,000 for Aid Cancer Treatment (ACT) through Bertha’s public appearances. Leading out the St Patrick’s day parade annually in Sneem was one of Bertha’s biggest fund-raising gigs.

Jerome confessed to giving her whiskey beforehand to “steady her nerves”. He maintained that her lively temperament had inspired his parents to call her after the infamous German gun, Big Bertha, after she was bought as a calf at the fair in Sneem on 17 March 1945.

The authenticity of Bertha’s age was a question Jerome fielded with nonchalance; no need for expensive PR consultants to fend off the media. The proof hinged on the discovery of a special ear mark used for indicating TB testing long before ear tags were introduced, he explained. In addition to the discovery of this mark, there were the findings of a laboratory test carried out in Cork.

“One lad below there said no one will eat a bite of her – she’s as yellow as a sovereign,” he stated. Most significantly, he attributed Bertha’s longevity to her breeding. She came from the ancient Droimeann line of cattle, bred to survive on poor or mountainy land and characterised by speckled colouring and a white stripe running right along the back from the tail to the ears. The Gaelic form of the word, Droimfhionn, is derived from droim meaning ridge and fhionn meaning pale or white.

References to this hardy breed go back over 1,000 years. Droimeann cattle are believed to have originated in the near East and to have migrated across Europe to Ireland. In Kerry they are almost exclusively found in a triangle of countryside between Sneem, Kenmare and Glencar.

Bertha could have lived and died in obscurity but for Jerome’s fondness for conversing about her with the owners of the Blackwater Tavern, Teddy and Mary O’Neill. Teddy got in touch with one of Kerry’s weekly newspapers, The Kingdom, in 1986. Editor Harry MacMonagle and journalist John O’Mahony did not look a gift cow in the mouth, and so a media sensation was born. Bertha’s fame spread worldwide as two entries in the Guinness Book of Records followed.

The popularity of Bertha and the crusade to raise money for cancer treatment transformed the life of the rural bachelor beyond measure. With her passing on 31 December 1993 at the age of 48, his horizons narrowed once again.

Some years later, an emigrant uncle of mine, Pat Joy, was home on holidays from London with his partner Eileen and I took them around the Ring of Kerry. From Sneem we found our way to Jerome O’Leary’s home at Geragh South. In the kitchen of the relatively modern bungalow, a shotgun lay across a worktop even more cluttered than my own. There was a black truncheon also with a retractable spike; rural isolation carries its own fear of intruders.

But the real purpose of our pilgrimage was in the hallway. The four of us stood there regarding Bertha, preserved for posterity through the art of taxidermy. To Jerome, she seemed no less a marvel in suspended animation than when she was dipping her speckled head lustily into a bucket of meal.

“Bertha,” my uncle said, in a tone somewhere between delight and reverence. I deigned to enquire how one of her legs appeared to be balding. Jerome informed us that he had stationed her too close to a radiator and the leg had been singed.

Researching the fate of Bertha for this book, I learned that after Jerome himself had gone to his maker, she remained there on her own in the abandoned house for many years. Maybe it was Jerome’s intervention from the heavenly pastures, but George Kelly, a farmer from Beaufort near Killarney, got in touch with some of his relatives who were happy to entrust her to his care. The years in solitary confinement had taken their toll, but George had Bertha refurbished to bring up her natural speckled and burgundy tones. Visitors to Hazelfort Farm between Killarney and Killorglin can view Big Bertha in her new resting place set against a backdrop of lowland pastures infinitely more fertile than the rushy fields she was reared in.

Her story is fittingly preserved in a series of framed photos and newspaper articles in the Blackwater Tavern where she took her first steps to media stardom. And, yes, that concerned mother proved correct back in 1992 at the birthday bash, because Bertha did in fact make a deposit before she left the bar – an insignificant contribution in comparison to the impression she made on the county’s imagination.

Hidden Kerry

Hidden Kerry: Keys To The Kingdom by Breda Joy, is published by Mercier Press and will take you on the less-travelled paths of the Kingdom, peopled with a varied cast of characters with colourful stories you will not find in brochures or guidebooks. RRP €19.99.

The official launch will be held on Sunday 19 October, 4.30pm, at The Dromhall Hotel, Muckross Road, Killarney. Launched by Diaspora Minister Jimmy Deenihan. Special guest, Big Bertha, courtesy of George Kelly, Springfort Farm. Launch sponsored by Kerry County Council and Killarney Credit Union. All are welcome.