Aiden Quinn: My Life and Times

Meeting of Wednesday 13 November 2019
Speaker: Club Member Aiden Quinn – My life and times

Aiden’s family home was in the townland of Drumfad, two fields away from the President’s Grant’s historic homestead near Ballygawley. He attended Killeshil Primary School and Omagh Tech before progressing to Loughry Agricultural College in Cookstown. On a visit to Balmoral show in 1963 he was recruited by Fullwood’s who had a stand demonstrating the latest in milking machines. This was the start of a lifetime engagement in the milk industry which led to him setting up his own business in the fitting and maintenance of dairy parlours. Aiden illustrated his talk with slides which showed how milking technology has evolved in the past 50 years. Starting from the time when a bucket plant was installed in the byre, he showed how things had moved on to Herringbone parlours capable of milking large herds of dairy cattle. During his career Aiden did work in France where he fitted out a Goat Milking Parlour and in Saudi Arabia where he installed a Camel Milking Parlour. Today dairy farmers are installing Robot Milking Machines and monitoring the health and wellbeing of each cow using bluetooth technology. Throughout his talk Aiden made constant reference to the loving support he had had from his wife Jean, to whom he accredited much of business success. He was thanked for an engaging and informative talk by Probian Felim O’Neill.