Richie Larkin, Coolagadden, Kilmeaden, holding a purebred Hereford at a Bull Show in (Thomas) Power’s Yard, Beau Street, Waterford, in the late 1940s. The man in the middle is ever-stylish stockowner ‘Big John’ Sullivan, Carriganure (supplier No. 9 Kilmeaden).

John was a brother of the late Statia Walsh, Lisnakill. Neddy, another Sullivan sibling, was, like his brother-in-law Jack, a noted ploughman. Richie, fondly known as “The Gullet”, looked after John’s bulls, including this one: named, for obvious reasons, ‘Director of Carriganure’. The show & sale was held under the auspices of the Irish Dairy Shorthorn Breeders Society, with local secretary James O’Regan, Portlaw, a mainstay of the committee.

The journalist Gerry McCarthy, a native of Blacknock, used to get a lift home from Tramore with ‘Big John’ during the summer season and “often heard him say he would have been a pioneer if he had to drink Guinness. He was a whiskey man.”