North Eastern Date Formed: August 1976 Founding Committee: President: Noel Lambert: Chairman: Noel Hayes, Secretary: Thomas Maguire, Treasurer: Bill Doran. Committee: Bob Rochford, Seamus Kelly, Maurice Kellett, Denis Sullivan, Peter McCulloch, Tom Clarke, Eamon McCullough, James Taaffe, Peter Flanagan. Present Committee: Chairman: Norris Beattie, Secretary: Linda Walsh, President: Rita Eivers, Treasurer: Kenneth Bray NEHFC Past Presidents 2001 - 25th year annniversary. Front row; Noel Hayes, Cathleen Hand, Michael Keaveny, Jill McCulloch. Back row; Malachy Tuite, Pater Flanagan, James Taaffe, Noel Lambert, Bob Rochford and Seamus Kelly. The Presidents and Chairmen were photographed at the Clubs 21st anniversary dinner in Kells in autumn 2001
My phone rang a few days ago. It was my good friend Dessie Dunlevy. It’s always good to hear from Dessie. Along with being a good friend of many years he is my link with the great involvement of my farming lifetime, the NEHFC (or the NE Friesian Breeders as we would have known it in its earlier years. “Richard Whelan and I were wondering if you could do something for us?” Being Dessie who was asking, I said yes while not knowing what I was agreeing to. “Could you write a history of the club for the jubilee issue of the IHFA journal Tom?” “We were saying that you would probably be the only one who was there at the beginning who could remember anything”. Lovely to be asked, but left you asking yourself many questions in turn.
Seamus & Michael Taaffe at the IFBA Heifer Show & Sale, RDS 1970
NEHFC Past Chairmen 2001 - 25th year anniversary. Front row; Eamon McCullough, Paddy Jordan, Seamus Kelly, Kevin Keaveny. Back row; Noel Hayes, Tom Kelly, James Taaffe, Sean Lynch, Peter Flanagan and Peter Mc Culloch
As I thought back over the last four decades happy memories came flooding in. One man stands out above all for his enormous contribution, the late Noel Hayes. In summer of 1976 he contacted all members of the then British Friesian Cattle Society (BFCS) who lived in the North East. He specifically contacted those who lived in counties Louth, Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Westmeath and Longford. Cavan and Monaghan had already set up the Breffni-Oriel Club. The IFBA (now the IHFA) was a constituent club of the elite and austere BFCS. The society headquarters were in Scotsbridge House in the dormitory London suburb of Rickmansworth. It was a long way from there, in every, sense to the farms and fields of Louth-Meath and our neighbouring counties. Noel Hayes was an Irish council member of the BFCS and he had the inspiration to set up Irish Friesian Clubs with the
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