Manx Charcuterie

Ballacosnahan Farm

About Us

We recently discovered our Loaghtans were not the first at Ballacosnahan Farm and in fact the Farm played a significant role in the Loaghtan story over a hundred years ago.

A few years ago, we found that the earliest photo of a Loaghtan in the Manx Museum was in 1924 of a ram belonging to JT Quirk of Ballacosnahan Farm. We then started to look into Mr Quirk – it is quite hard to find out information as so little was written down.

A farmer called Caesar Bacon (1870 -1916) was one of the most important “heroes” in the Loaghtan story. He realised that Loaghtans were disappearing and in the 1890s went around the Isle of Man gathering up the few that he could find. In his first year of breeding 1895 he had only 4 ewes that were young and fit enough to breed from and most of today’s Manx Loaghtans descend from Caesar Bacon’s 4 ewes.

We know from sale records that Mr Quirk bought 3 Manx Loaghtan ewes in 1903 (from Caesar Bacon) but in 1916 after Bacon’s death, “JT Quirk of Ballacosnahan, Patrick” was one of 3 buyers for Bacon’s flock of Manx Loaghtan and they came to Ballacosnahan. We also know that JT Quick won prizes for his Loaghtans at the Southern Agricultural show 1924 -1926.

We were lucky enough to make contact with JT Quirk’s granddaughter who gave us the wonderful photo of JT Quirk with his sheep at Ballacosnahan farm taken in the 1920’s. The site of the photo is largely unchanged today. To take this photo in the 1920s would have involved enormous effort and a professional photographer, he must have really loved his loaghtans and been so proud of his flock to go this effort.

His granddaughter said he retired from farming and Ballacosnahan in about 1930 but is unsure what happened to his sheep. She gave us a photo of JT Quirk wearing his Loaghtan suit again taken in the 1920s and she remembers he was very proud of his Loaghtan suit,

I hope JT Quick is smiling down on us that we have brought Manx Loaghtans back to Ballacosnahan.