Cattle and sheep numbers were up this week as ringside bidding returned in all of the country’s marts.

While many are delighted to be back, some farmers have raised the issue of “calling” and “blocking” coming back, saying it may result in prices coming back a little.

Minister of Agriculture Charlie McConalogue paid a visit to Carndonagh Mart in his home county of Donegal on Monday.

Speaking on the reopening of marts, he said: “This is a great day for our network of marts across the country,” and that both mart staff and farmers had “shown tremendous resilience, agility and resourcefulness over the past 12 months in dealing with the challenges of COVID-19 while continuing to trade seamlessly.”

What the mart managers said

Padraig McElroy, mart manager, Carnaross Livestock Mart

Everybody played ball and were willing to obey all social distancing rules. There is no doubt that online bidding is here to stay but it was great to have people back ringside and you could see the sale of bullocks on Monday was on fire. Overall trade maybe slipped slightly due to the lack of grass in recent weeks but our regular customers never slackened off.

Helen Kells, Golden Vale Mart, Carrigallen

It’s a super feeling to see hands and fingers waving again around the ring. In fairness, our customers were very good in terms of abiding by the rules but it was very difficult for them. A lot of our bigger customers are back ringside but we had a few farmers who were just looking for one or two replacement suckler animals stay at home and bid online. I think it’ll be a mix in the future and both will complement each other.

Martin Ryan, mart manager, Thurles

It was great to welcome buyers and sellers back again this week although a lot of business is still being done online. Now that we have people back ringside it is important that everyone stays vigilant and continues to adhere to the guidelines over the coming weeks and months or we could find ourselves back in the situation of online trading only once again.

Kevin Caslin, mart manager, Elphin

It’s a great relief to have everybody back around the ring. I think it has lifted the spirits of farmers as well in terms of getting back to normal. We still had a good few customers bidding online, especially the northern ones. It was also interesting to see some of our bigger sheep buyers choose to stay buying online at our sheep sale. We had everybody here handling the lambs but some chose to sit in the jeep and do their business out there.

Brian Kenny, beef farmer, Co Meath, at Carnaross Mart

It is marvellous to be back at a mart and getting back in touch with the trade. It can be very difficult to judge an animal online, you’ve got to see the animal live. The mart is great from a social aspect also and while we are not back to normal on that side of things just yet, the mart does allow you to keep in touch with your fellow farmers, which is extremely important.