Professional Sheep Shearer has the Irish record in his sights

Tom Perry, a professional Sheep Shearer and Farmer from Strabane, County Tyrone will be making a record-breaking attempt to shear more than 708 lambs in nine hours later this month.

Tom who’s 33 years old, will be attempting to beat the current Irish 9 Hour Solo Lamb Shearing Record previously set by Stanley Allingham in 2019. In order to do this, Tom will need to shear a lamb every 45 seconds across a gruelling 9 hours.

Shearing has allowed Tom to travel worldwide for over 10 years and he has been a finalist at many international ‘open’ shearing competitions. He has also proudly represented his country having previously been a member of the Northern Ireland team that won the Six Nations event at the Balmoral Show in 2022 and this year was crowned Royal Ulster National Champion.

Brendan Kelly, Chairman, Ulster Wool said: “Record attempts are an excellent opportunity to showcase the highly skilled individuals driving the industry forward while also helping to promote the quality of our wool to wider audiences.

“As a key industry body, we are totally committed to supporting champions as representatives and ambassadors. We’re delighted to be supporting Tom to help him achieve his goal and wish him the very best of luck.”

All proceeds will be donated to Rural Support, an agriculturally minded charity, based in Northern Ireland.