Swords at the cutting edge

DAVE BROWN reports from a most memorable two-day event just outside Dublin

- DAVE BROWN

MY FINAL judging engagement of the season saw my wife Vicky and I heading off to Dublin, following a kind invitation to judge at the Irish Zebra Finch & Bengalese Society show.

The event was held in conjunction with Swords CBS at the Donabate Community & Leisure Centre, a large sports hall with excellent light and plenty of room to house the huge entry of all varieties of cage bird.

The show is a two-day event which, thankfully, allows plenty of time to judge. There was even a leisurely lunch break in the local pub halfway through judging.

Being such a large event, there needed to be a large team of judges, many of whom had also travelled from afar for the show and which included, from the UK, Adam Kendall and Matt Eld on the Fifes, and Ian Wright on the Glosters, and from Holland, Bart Braam on foreign and Peer van der Zenden on colour canaries. We enjoyed a very good evening out with several of them on Saturday night when all the judging was finished.