An Unplanned Introduction to Beef Shorthorn – An Interview with Carmel Lawlor
Carmel Lawlor is a tillage and commercial suckler farmer based in Co. Kildare. Her herd is primarily made up of Blonde d’Aquitaine commercial cattle, but an unexpected purchase has seen Beef Shorthorn genetics become part of her breeding programme.

Carmel explained that her introduction to the Blonde breed was also somewhat accidental. “I became aware of the breed accidentally. We were finishing a lot of heifers at the time and buying in a lot of weanlings. I remember going down to Des Greene in Co. Wexford, who would be a Blonde breeder. We ended up buying heifers off him, and I said to my husband, ‘The next bull I buy is going to be whatever these heifers are by.’ I didn’t even know what the breed was, but I said that’s where I was going. That is where it all started, and I’ve kept Blonde bulls ever since.”

Although Carmel has continued to use Blonde bulls in the herd, she somehow found herself with a Beef Shorthorn AI bull, Glann Jenson, from Bova AI. “So that was kind of unplanned, which is often the case with cattle.” Carmel’s son Brian had recently returned home to farm and was deciding which area of the farm he wanted to concentrate on. “I asked him where his interest was, as we do both sucklers and tillage. The sucklers had been kind of reduced due to profitability and labour, although we still had about 40 or 45 cows.” Carmel was delighted to hear that Brian wanted to concentrate on the livestock, as this is where her own interest lies too. They decided not to sell any of their Blonde heifers that year, instead retaining them as replacements. The next step was to find a bull unrelated to the stock they had retained. “So I rang up Bova AI, whom I have purchased bulls from over the last number of years. I asked Owen if he had a nice, easy-calving Blonde bull, but he didn’t. So I said, ‘Okay, what have you got?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I have a nice Shorthorn bull.’
‘Okay,’ I thought, ‘do I want a Shorthorn bull? I haven’t a clue!’”

Carmel praised the quality of the animals kept by Bova AI, knowing that she was in safe hands. “In fairness to the guys, they keep great stock, and because they come from an AI station, they are quiet and well handled.”
Having had no previous experience with Beef Shorthorns, Carmel described the purchase as a “shot in the dark”. She did, however, have a conversation with another Blonde breeder, who explained that the Shorthorn and Blonde breeds cross very well. That was all the information she had to go on at the time.

Carmel calves down her heifers at approximately 30 months of age and decided to take a chance, purchasing Glann Jenson in March 2025 to run with her Blonde heifers. By this stage, she knew the heifers would be well grown and mature by the time they calved. Carmel and her family operate a split-calving system and now have a number of bulls and heifers on the ground sired by Glann Jenson. “They are really nice stock. I’m very happy with them. They are good, square animals.”

When discussing Jenson’s calving element, Carmel said she is happy with him. “No matter what bull you use on heifers, you have to be careful and you’re naïve if you think it will all go swimmingly, that’s just my opinion”. “I found that if they were carrying a heifer, they calved no problem. When carrying a bull, we just needed to make sure all was okay, but I wouldn’t say they were difficult calvings.” Carmel believes that a farmer cannot expect every heifer to calve unassisted all the time. With their focus on producing quality weanlings for the market, she is keen to maintain the characteristics that have served their herd so well. “We sell our calves as weanlings, and we are trying to breed a smart calf with good weights that the shippers will buy. We don’t want to lose that. The spring SHX calves are really shapey, and I’m very interested to see how the heifers will progress.”

Looking to the future, Carmel and Brian hope to retain the Beef Shorthorn-cross (SHX) heifers as replacements in the herd, with the aim of incorporating the breed’s genetics into their commercial suckler system.

We look forward to following the herds progress and we thank Carmel for her time.

Glann Jenson has established himself as a consistent and influential sire within the Shorthorn breed. He sired the top-priced bull at the Irish Shorthorn Society Premier Sale in both 2025 and 2026, with Rockville Ramsey 567 achieving €7,100 in 2025, followed by Glannview Paw Patrol, who topped the bull section at €6,000 in 2026.

Semen from Glann Jenson is available through Bova AI. 

By Áine O’Donovan Nicholson