Three students from Scoil Chríost Rí, Portlaoise, were announced as runners-up at the final of the 2025 Certified Irish Angus Schools’ Competition in Croke Park last Friday.

Jill Sheehy, Carol Sheehy and Sinéad Slevin attended the prestigious grand final in the Hogan Suite at the iconic venue after successfully completing their project and rearing five Angus calves for 18 months. 

As part of the competition, the Scoil Chríost Rí students completed a research project on the topic “Optimising Sustainable Animal Nutrition for Better Angus Beef Cattle”.   

Photo courtesy of Kepak on X.

The Certified Irish Angus Schools’ Competition in association with ABP and Kepak is an initiative that challenges students to rear five Irish Angus Cross calves for 18 months until their slaughter which aids their Leaving Certificate Agricultural Science curriculum.

It aims to promote the Certified Irish Angus Beef brand while communicating the care and attention required to produce quality beef for consumers.

“These three young women bubbled with enthusiasm for this project from the word go," the competition judges said.

!Once the calves arrived on the Sheehy Farm, the community of Stradbally and Portlaoise were aware of their presence and the ambition of the girls to communicate how efficiently and sustainably these animals would be reared.

"The school interaction challenged the girls. Many of their school mates constructively enquired as to whether the production system would address their climate concerns. Ultimately the girls proved that collaboration between beef and tillage farmers benefitted both sectors and the overall environment.

"Through a lot of hard work, determination and drive, the girls developed an understanding of farming as an occupation and as a business and how these impact on each other.

"Carol and Jill developed further understanding about their parent’s farming lives while Sinead experienced what it is like for a woman to run a farm and raise a family by volunteering to work on the farm of Ireland’s most decorated GAA player, Briege Corkery.

"Through a combination of hard work, focus and genuine interest, these ladies have excelled personally and professionally throughout this competition," the judges finished.

Now in its eleventh year, the Certified Irish Angus Schools Competition has experienced its biggest year yet. In 2024, over 188 groups, over 650 students took part in the competition with 26 counties represented from all provinces.

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The Certified Irish Angus Schools Competition is celebrating its eleventh year in 2025 and farming experts are currently judging the next batch of potential entrants from a pool of 46 shortlisted schools.

The judges include representatives from right across the agri-food industry ABP, Kepak, Tesco, Bord Bia, Dromoland Castle, Dovea Genetics, IASTA, Agriland, IFA and Macra na Feirme. The five schools that best demonstrate an understanding of the competition, along with innovative project ideas will be announced later this year at the National Ploughing Championships in September. 

 On completion of the project, each of the finalists receives the financial benefit involved in the selling of the animals to the processors which amounts to an average €10,000 per group. The overall winning students also receive an additional grant of €2,000 for their further education.