Though I am a city girl through and through, I always thought of farms as sort of magical places. These bastions of society have kept people fed, clothed, and employed for centuries. Every cycle of life happens there, and the work ethic and drive of farmers is wholly unmatched. It’s hard to imagine anyone intentionally harming them or their property, and yet there are those who do. On March 14, 2026, a farmer in Ireland awoke to a rather gruesome sight, and he’s still searching for answers.
Kevin McGivern found 13 of his lambs brutally murdered.
The lambs were killed at some point between 7 p.m. March 13 and 7:45 a.m. March 14, at a farm in Rostrevor, a village in Northern Ireland, a news release revealed, according to People.
“It appears that their necks had been deliberately broken,” Inspector Reynolds shared in a news release from the Police Service of Northern Ireland. “This is a shocking crime, and we would be keen to hear from anyone who noticed anything unusual in the area during [those] times.”
Speaking with the BBC, McGivern said the loss is genuinely devastating on several levels, calling the scene the “worst thing I could ever imagine.”
He detailed what the scene looked like when he and his brother arrived at the field about 8 a.m. “At least 11 had their necks broke, the others were probably strangled,” McGivern shared. “It was like a crime scene, really.”
Despite sheep being a good trade for farmers at the moment, for McGivern it isn’t just about the lost investment.
“This is not job satisfaction for us, this is not something we want. It’s not about the value of them, it’s just not a job satisfaction,” he said, per the BBC. “After putting in so many hours, doing everything as well as we could for them, this is not what we want to see.”
The lambs were practically newborns, which makes the crime even more insidious.
“This was clearly a reprehensible and callous attack on helpless, relatively newborn lambs. I’ve never seen anything like this happen in our area,” local councilor Jarlath Tinnelly told the BBC. “My heart really does go out to the two farmers, the McGivern brothers.”
He also noted that “people or persons who carried out such a violent act need to be brought to justice.”
Now, the brothers are working to do damage control for their flock.
According to farmer Kim Goodling, who works with curly sheep at Vermont Grand View Farm, mother sheep, known as ewes, mourn the loss of their lambs.
“Sheep are social animals,” Goodling writes on the farm’s website. “They bond with one another and feel intense mothering instincts towards their young. When a ewe loses a lamb whether at birth or weeks later, she feels the loss. The best thing a shepherd can do for a mourning ewe is to allow her to grieve her loss.”
To say the McGivern brothers are trying to mitigate a tragedy is an understatement. He plans on relocating some sheep to help hem “adopt” some lambs, but it’s not a simple process.
“It’s sort of like a welfare issue to relieve the ewes of the milk. Hopefully, if they adopt another lamb it makes the ewe feel better, it’s the best of a bad job,” he told the BBC.
Police are still investigating the crime and are encouraging anyone with information to come forward.
