The weekly Friday evening cattle sale at Cootehill Mart in Co. Cavan has been cancelled for this evening (Friday, January 24) as a result of "extensive damage" caused to the structure of the livestock mart building.
The impacts of Storm Éowyn, which struck the country in the early hours of Friday morning, has caused widespread damage to buildings and properties across the country with fallen trees, power outages and structural damage to buildings seen in most counties.
Cootehill Mart in Co. Cavan is one of the buildings that has fallen victim to the storm.
Speaking to Agriland, Cootehill Mart's Stephen Drury said: "We washed up here last night until about 2:00a.m after the sheep sale and it was 100% at that time so it happened after that and before 8:00a.m this morning."
Drury explained how the high winds in the storm "blew in the whole front" of the mart "and lifted the first 25-30 feet of the roof over the sheep rings".
He said: "When I came in here this morning the roof sheeting was all strewn across the whole road and down into the back field and down into the back yard. There were bits of it everywhere."
He noted that the storm has also caused power outages saying "there's no power in the whole town. The power is still off".
Drury said that the clean up operation will commence as soon as possible. "We have been on to the insurance company and we have a few lads organised for Monday to start stripping down the sheeting. We can do nothing at the moment, it's too dangerous.
"The way it's sitting at the minute is actually dangerous just even as [the roof sheeting] sits, you couldn't have a sale around it because the roof could cave in at any time so we have to try and support it some way before the next sale."
Sales have been suspended at the mart venue until further notice but Drury is confident the necessary repairs can be made to the mart venue in a timely manner and the mart can return to trading as soon as possible.