Kerry Cattle – By Miss Ruth Leslie and the British Kerry Cattle Society
The Kerry breed of cattle has a claim to have some of the earliest ancestry of any farm animal in the British Isles. Truly ancient Irish cattle bones, some 3000 years old, have been identified as being similar to those of a modern Kerry. This hardy native breed is descended from cattle kept by early Celtic settlers in the West of Ireland, at the very edge of Europe.
By the 8th century, a dairy economy in this part of the world had developed and was firmly established with cows even acting as currency. The importance of cattle is underlined by the frequent mention of cattle in the poetry of the era. Laws related to them stated that a cow should be attractive to look at and not lame, not one eyed, and not given to breaking out of the enclosure, and of course to be a good milker.
In the 17th century cattle seem to have been imported regularly from Ireland to England, but in 1666 an English law put a stop to this by proclaiming it a ‘public and common nuisance’. The person who commits a public nuisance incurs liability to life imprisonment and unlimited fines, so this seems to have put a stop to the trade.
In the 18th century Longhorns were taken to Ireland followed in the 19th century by Shorthorns. These soon became the favourite milking cow and many Kerries were crossed with them. However, in the rough and mountainous country of the South West, only the small Kerry was adapted to the poor ground. It could be kept at little expense by poorer people and butter could be made for sale to keep their families. She was also found useful by many smaller households in other parts who wanted a milk producer and there were also well-to-do landowners who favoured them for their dairies.
At this time these cattle were not called ‘Kerries’ and they were not always black. There was no distinction between the long-legged and the short-legged, broader type, later called ‘Dexter Kerries’. In 1803. Lord Pelham brought 10 cows and a bull to England from Bantry Bay – in the far South-West of Ireland – some of them going to Lord Sheffield and Colonel Hardy. At the time they made little progress in popularity and in 1813 a bull belonging to Mr Lowther of Alserfold, Hampshire was recommended as the only Kerry bull then in England.
In the middle of the 19th century the cattle plague in England killed a high percentage of cattle, especially in the London city dairies. Replacements were urgently needed, and, after supplies of Channel Island stock (called ‘Alderneys’) were exhausted, the next place to look was Ireland. Kerry Cattle had the merit of having no problems with bovine tuberculosis, and as the Kerries were being displaced by Shorthorns in their native land, they were available for export.
In Ireland from the 1840s there was an upsurge of interest in the Kerry among prominent people, some of whom kept records and worked on improving the milk yield. In 1856 a number of Kerries went from Ireland to the Great Paris Exhibition and in 1879 James Robertson, a great enthusiast, took 12 to Paris. Robertson also entered shows in England and in 1891 moved his whole ‘La Mancha’ herd to Warwick. In the last 30 years of the 19th century, enthusiasm for the breed was booming, especially among estate or land owners, who found the cattle elegant and decorative, light on the land and economical to keep.
Numbers of Kerries and enthusiasm for keeping them were such that in 1892 the English Kerry and Dexter Society was formed and published its first herd book only 2 years after the Irish Kerry Herd Book was started. The Kerry and the Dexter types stayed in the same herd book for a while, then became separate. In Ireland the Dexters were largely neglected, but in Britain gradually became more popular than the Kerry so they managed to survive the later problems of dairy cows and continue to flourish as a native breed.
At this early stage, and for a good while afterwards, some owners registered their cattle in both the Irish and the English Herd Book. At the height of their fashion, the Kerries were often considered ‘fancy’ (slightly strange for something still also considered the ‘poor man’s cow’) and referred to as ‘Emerald Blackskins’ or ‘Emerald Diamonds’. Indeed, among the owners of Kerries at the time was ‘His Majesty the King’ at Sandringham.
In the first half of the 20th century they also appeared in standard British agricultural books among other dairy cows, as in Fream’s ‘Elements of British Agriculture’ (1902) and a Young Farmer’s booklet of the 1930s. Kerries are listed with the Dexters under the entry for ‘Irish Cattle’ in the The Standard Cyclopedia of Modern Agriculture in 1910. There were also inspection classes and milking competitions in shows reported in ‘Farmer’s Weekly’, sometimes with a photo, as with other breeds. Kerry numbers continued to rise in the UK, as well as keeping major supporters in Ireland. John Hilliard started his Castlelough Herd in Killarney in 1897 and there is still a milking herd there in the hands of his granddaughter Miss Raymonde Hilliard to this day.
In 1903 a Mrs Robertson took a farm at Limavady (now Northern Ireland), and purchased some Kerries. Only 2 years later she was winning shows with her Vaddy herd. This herd was still registering heifers in 1957 in the hands of her daughter Miss Dorothy. Management then passed to her nephew although by 1965 the last of the herd was being dispersed.
There were also enthusiasts in Great Britain who had dairies. In Essex Miss Bowen- Colthurst had 120 cows, at first milked by hand. She trained her young bulls (till a year old) to work and move haycocks, etc and had a steer trained to harness. which would sometimes do her milk deliveries. A pupil of hers, Miss Joan Cochrane, had a very successful herd in Somerset, winning for looks and milk production in major shows. There was a good deal of movement of cattle from Ireland to England, and Miss Cochrane had 10 Vaddy cows in her herd.
When Friesians came from Holland and became established as very good milkers, all other dairy breeds in Britain suffered decline and the Kerry, as a minority breed, was very severely affected. In 1966 the British Kerry Cattle Society (as it now was) fell dormant, and unfortunately many excellent milking lines were lost. Fortunately the Kerry Cattle Society in Ireland agreed to continue to hold the registrations and register cattle. This agreement has continued to the present day when both Societies have a good working relationship.
In 1963 Miss Ruth Leslie was on a small farm in West Sussex where ‘Princess’, a 15 year old Kerry, was milked for the house. Ruth became very aware of the worth and status of the Kerry cow, and when – 14 years later – she had the chance to keep a couple of cows, she wanted Kerries. She found non but a few unregistered cows in Orkney imported some 3 years before. A single cow in Whipsnade Zoo had apparently survived into the early 1970s. Eventually, in 1978 she imported 2 heifer calves from the Castlelough Herd to her farm in Hampshire. She got A.I., initially from Ireland, with one of the heifers only getting in calf at the 6th attempt.
Over the next few years, a few more beasts were imported and some bred. The RBST took the cattle under its wing and were very helpful. There was a good working relationship with the Kerry Cattle Society in Ireland who also valued the support of the RBST in raising the profile of the Kerry in both the UK and Ireland and slowly numbers increased.
In 1982 a meeting was held at Stoneleigh at the Show and Sale where the original British Kerry Cattle Society was formally disbanded. The meeting which was well attended, included Miss Cochrane who was a former member of the British Kerry Cattle Society though long retired. At the same meeting, the Society was re-formed, but without registration powers – basically as a club for members keeping in touch. This was supported by the Kerry Cattle Society in Ireland whose secretary, Miss Raymonde Hilliard, and several members also attended the meeting.
Numbers of Kerry cattle gradually grew through the 80s, 90s and early 2000s in both the UK and Ireland. Good support was received from the RBST. Semen from good bulls was taken and stored through the RBST –which was vital for a breed with such low numbers of cattle.
In 2005, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) made all countries responsible for their own native breeds. There was apparently no instruction about a breed with a long presence in a country to which it was not native. This provided a problem for the RBST with regard to the Irish breeds, which finally ended in their current position –in small print in footnote 4 to the Watchlist, stating that they ‘can be found’ and ‘historically have been part of British agriculture’.
Since then the numbers of Kerries have dropped in the UK and – as is a problem in Ireland and in much of farming in general – there is a shortage of enthusiastic younger people coming through. Herd book figures for 2019 include 264 births notified, 116 female registrations, 256 breeding dams for the whole of the UK and Ireland. Considering that we live in a time when ecology and global warming, as well as the economy are getting a lot of attention, the Kerry should be valued for genetic and economic, as well as historical reasons.
