MY family were distillers and farmers between Derry and Donegal. They owned Watts distillery in Derry as well as bottling plants in Letterkenny and Ramelton, and their most famous brand of whiskey was Tyrconnell which is now being made by the distillery in Dundalk.

As far as I can work out, my forebears spent most of their time either hunting, playing polo, shooting or fishing. I suppose I am just two generations too late?!

I was born in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, where my father owned two farms, one at home at Carrablagh in Portsalon and another farm at Manorcunningham outside Letterkenny. The farm at home was all grass for sheep and cattle and the farm at Manorcunningham was arable.

My childhood was idyllic bliss spent between both farms – we also had Lough Swilly at the bottom of the garden and my uncle had a salmon river between both farms.

As you can imagine my childhood was spent with my brother and sisters having lots of fun surrounded by the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen to this day and basically I spent my youth shooting, fishing or wandering around the farms.

When I was seven I was sent to Headfort School in Kells, Co Meath and from there on to St. Columba’s on the outskirts of Dublin. I had mostly happy times at both where I made some wonderful friends who remain such to this day.

From St Columba I was sent to a grammar course in Edinburgh to do my A levels after the penny had dropped that I was most certainly not the brightest.

When I decided that I would like to make horses my career, I went and worked for Denis and Fania Mahony at Balrath in Co. Meath and from there went on to spend a year at the Irish National Stud, followed a year at Three Chimneys in Kentucky doing mares, foals and yearlings and then on to Keeneland where I was their first ever overseas student to be accepted for a year’s internship. To this day I am eternally grateful to the people at Three Chimneys and Keeneland for their extreme kindness and the way in which they helped me.

From Keeneland, I came to Tattersalls on September 1st, 1987, very much under the tutelage of Martin Mitchell and Edmond Mahony, so all complaints can be addressed to them!

I started off in the bloodstock department processing entries, getting catalogues ready, reading proofs etc. The natural progression from there was to start undertaking yearling visits accompanied by a director and then the firm decided to see if I could auctioneer. I was fortunate enough to made a director in 1996.

After a couple of years here in the UK I met my wife-to-be at Fakenham Races when I managed to break my car key off in the door of my car and she very kindly rescued me and took me to her cousin’s party two miles down the road.

We got married soon thereafter and we are lucky enough to have four fantastic children: Tara aged 23, Paddy aged 19, Hubie aged 17 and Alice aged 13. As you can imagine, there is never a dull moment!

Close calls on the rostrum

I think really the main change in the bloodstock business for me is the demise of the smaller owner/breeder. The industry has become wholeheartedly commercial and much more of a pressurised business.

Consignors get bigger, as do stallion books and foal crops. This of course puts pressure on sales places in sales: in the old days, if you really liked a yearling colt, regardless of its pedigree you were able to find it a decent place. Sadly nowadays it is much trickier and they need to be by the right sire, have a proper dam’s page and also good conformation.

Needless to say as an auctioneer you are only as good as the last horse you sold. I have been called many names, some of which I couldn’t even find in the dictionary. However, judging by the tone in which they were uttered to me, I am guessing they were not complimentary!

We have had many close calls, both with yearling visits and on the rostrum, which is inevitable when you work with practical jokers such as Michael Hillman. One day he managed to remove one of my shoes while I was in mid-flow on the rostrum which he then hid.

As some of you know may know, auctioneers have a blank page in their catalogues beside each lot’s pedigree. Whilst I was selling the last one in a particularly lengthy evening session, I turned over the page to find that he had drawn the perfect picture of a pint with a note underneath it saying: “Would you ever hurry up?!?”.

I could recount many other noticeable incidents and near-misses on the rostrum but suffice to say, it is probably best that they are left there ... I am enormously fortunate to have met some fantastic people during my time in the industry, many of whom are now close friends - life doesn’t get much better!