Thursday 8th January 2026

The IGA Dairy Social Night took place on the eve of the Dairy Conference at the 4-star Charleville Park Hotel, in Cork on Thursday 8th of January. This expanded social night was back bigger than ever this January with the room at full capacity. The positive feedback and the increasing number of requests from members and corporate members to include a social element to the dairy conference, is no surprise considering the popularity and success of previous social nights.

The evening kicked-off at 7:30 pm with a 4-course Gala dinner, and afterwards Paul Hyland, dairy farmer and past IGA President and council member hosted a discussion with special guest for the night, builder and dairy farmer Michael Ward. This was a very interesting, insightful but also a fun filled discussion with an individual who has had very interesting and different pathway into dairying.

Michael Ward is a civil engineer by profession and now farmer. He owns one third of the ‘Ward and Burke Group’ that will construct €500m worth of municipal infrastructure in Canada, USA, England and Ireland in 2024. They employ over 1,600 skilled people, hiring and training mainly young graduates and apprentices from farming backgrounds. He owns Kilbegnet House Farm in Creggs County Roscommon where he operates a 500 cow dairy herd with his share farming partner, Andrew Clarke. He grew up on a mixed dairy, beef and sheep farm which he inherited with his brother aged 16. After completing his leaving cert he farmed for two years before going onto study at UCG. After graduating he rented his farm and emigrated to England to work as a contractor. For the past 35 years he has lived between England and Ireland and in the past 4 years has resumed farming.

We really enjoyed seeing lots of members  networking over dinner. It was a very social gathering with lots of laughter shared.