Joe and JJ Melody on their farm in Bunratty. Photograph: Joe Buckley
FAMILY links remain strong with the Newmarket-on-Fergus Agricultural Show which returns this Sunday.
This is typified with some of the present-day committee members, Jane O’Leary, Fiona Duggan, Sarah Lynch and Davy Gleeson carrying on the torch from their parents.
Another family to maintain an involvement across generations has been the Melodys of Bunratty. Jimmy Melody was an integral member of the show committee, he attended his final show weeks before his death in 2003 and a perpetual cup in his honour is presented each year to Charolais champion of the show.
Jimmy’s sons JJ and Dan are ever-present with their involvement and attendance of the Show and his grandson Joseph continues to keep the family connected. The Melody family continue to hold a huge involvement with the Newmarket-on-Fergus Agricultural Show.
For JJ, earliest memories of the Show stretch back fifty years to rounding up cattle with Frank O’Brien and Hubbie McCabe plus loading cattle with John and Michael Melican. He recalled, “there was an in between period where the Newmarket show was a horse show and the cattle faded out, maybe the committee wasn’t as strong or something I don’t know but then they brought back the cattle again and my father was involved a bit in that and he loved the shows and went to shows everywhere and I suppose it’s the people you meet at the shows that makes the show. It’s not for what you’re going to make out of the show, it’s for the involvement of the people, all the neighbours and everyone. There was a lot of funny days now in Newmarket because that time cattle weren’t trained the same way that they are now for shows”.
An involvement for Joseph began around 2010 when the show was held in the field of Joseph Hannon on the approach to Newmarket-on-Fergus from Shannon. “That would’ve intersected with my own interests in a showing career in cattle, we were doing a lot of showing with Shirley cattle, Limousines, and a few Herefords at the time. We competed a few times in Newmarket and we were lucky enough to have some success there and it was really the jumping off point for the year, the first show of the year. It was just a great community day, some of the great people involved in it and strong characters like Jim O’Leary driving it forward and keeping it going in years when it would’ve been easier for it to have faded away”.
Even when bad weather cancelled some shows which never recovered, the Newmarket-on-Fergus Show always bounced back, Joseph noted. “My grandfather would’ve been to the show a couple of weeks before he died, he was nearly 97 years of age and he had a lifelong involvement with showing and it would have been a great pride to him how well it was going, even in his final year and we’ve sponsored a cup there the Jimmy Melody cup and the thing with the show is that it links generations, there’s so many families involved in it and it’s such a great thing for the village and the word pride would probably be the main thing that would come out when I think about the Newmarket show people get a lot of pride out of it.
“The show is one of the last great institutions we have like years ago you hear old people talking about thrashings and when old people used meet at the creamery, they’re all gone. Now you’ve the Newmarket show and it’s a great thing for the community as it is in other communities that have local shows. Even the small things it’s the preparation, the committees there’s a social aspect to that too for people and it has survived COVID and it has survived a lot of things and I hope that it will keep persisting because there’s a lot of great people involved in the show and it seems to be going from strength to strength,” he added.
Keeping the family link with the Jimmy Melody Cup has been something which would have pleased his father, JJ said. “Even up to the time when he was not well, he went to the show and that was very important to him and I suppose it gave us a kick start too to go on and compete at shows that we may have never gone to. We done Ennis, nearly every show in Ireland and we had great neighbours and we had great help from the Melicans in particular. They would always be ready and willing to go to the shows with us and it wasn’t easy because he was trying to go and run a business too and the day was gone. I remember getting up at four o’clock one morning and heading off to Ballinasloe and we didn’t come home till all hours of the night and that time you were bringing more because you had to pay for a truck and pay for helpers and bring fellas with you. There wouldn’t be any money made on the shows because you had to buy meals for whoever you had and look after them. It was a challenge like but it was great”.
Winning at the Newmarket-on-Fergus Show “meant more”, JJ explained. “That was the very same as the championship, you knew how good you were when you started and how the animals coped and how they were able to calm themselves. Some animals you just would lose, they’d get wild and all that and you’d say I’m not going to bring that one no more so it was a breaking point that you knew. It’s like trying out young players on a team. If they worked out well the first day you went on from there. I know a few won in Newmarket and they went on and won All Irelands after and they were very successful cattle and maybe if that show wasn’t there, we might never have got to that stage. The good thing about it is you’re meeting all the neighbours you wouldn’t meet, like you were going to creameries and going to marts and things but it’s very important I think for the parish”.
In terms of comparisons with other shows across the country, Joe outlined, “for a relatively compact size local show, it packs a huge punch. There’s great exhibit of cattle there, you haven’t much empty space on the day, the horse side isn’t my side of it but they do have great horses and the jumping side of it. There’s a huge dog show in it. There isn’t much empty space in that field like if we had to look at expanding it which you wouldn’t be but it’s going quite well, there isn’t that much extra green space there for them and it’s a big field. The best way I could describe it from a cattle man’s point of view is you could win a first prize or champion in your particular breed at Newmarket and there’s nothing to say that that same animal wouldn’t be capable of winning it at the top show in the country in Tullamore. It could be a smaller class in Newmarket but the quality is so good that if you go into Tullamore in a class of 25 cattle you could still come out on top. You’ve that good a level in Newmarket, the quality has come on leaps and bounds in recent years and there’s exhibitors from all over the country coming to it”.
Shows have gone more professional now, JJ observed. “People were catching cattle the week before and it was kind of a will you hold that will you be able. There was a lot of fun in it. Now it’s gone kind of professional really, they’re travelling long distances to shows. There’d be people there from a lot of counties coming to Newmarket when it’s on”.
Agricultural shows are of integral importance to rural communities, Joe explained. “The Newmarket show is an institution and I think unfortunately like other areas that lost their shows, especially their cattle shows, they didn’t realise what they had until it was gone and it’s on Sunday evening when the show is all over that there’s a goodwill feeling in the community. That’s in short supply now rural communities are in danger of decline in a lot of the country and we’re very lucky to have a prosperous rural community around here and I think Newmarket show is playing no small part in it, the fact that it’s still going is a testament to a small core of people, strong people who came back and revived it and brought it to the level it’s at today. It’s a positive news story in rural Ireland where you often have a lot of doom and gloom. Its positive and its very necessary, with rural isolation people get a chance to meet people they mightn’t have met since the last show”.
JJ added, “Even local people that wouldn’t be interested in shows, if you go when the show is over, all the gates that they put up for the cattle and all the pens they all have to be moved and you’ll see every one of them coming and giving a hand and loading them up on a tractor and trailer to go back the next day. It’s a great sign of the parish that everyone gets involved. That’s really what the show is all about like. Now you see an awful lot of youngsters coming to the show, which is good, its encouragement you’d see families from the parish going. They come from long distances to Newmarket show, every county”.
Crowds will come in their numbers on Sunday and they’ll be sure to meet the Melody family in fine form once they arrive.
