When my mother got married she moved away to Scotland and the family from whom she and my father rented a house  had two Irish Setters, a mother and daughter called Canberra and Fritter.   I remember quite vividly as a child her telling me about them.  So it is my mother I have to thank for my love affair with Irish Setters.  Having moved to different parts of N.Ireland as a young child it wasn’t possible to have a dog, so when we finally settled back into Belfast, our first Irish Setter actually adopted us.  A stray coming from nowhere in particular and no-one seeming to own him, he stayed.   However  in 1983 when I was fifteen years old I was finally able to have my own Irish Setter named Tara (show name – Gandolf Lady)  and she came from the Pegwood Kennels owned by Agnes Spratt.  In 1985 on the advice of Mrs Spratt I mated her to Moval Grand Douglas and her first litter was born in September 1985.  In February 1986 we attended our first show.

In 1987 we applied for an affix and went first to the Irish Kennel Club and the affix Rohanmor was granted for life in January 1988, however it wasn’t until 1992 that we applied for the name with the Kennel Club and this was duly granted in July 1992.  The name “Rohanmor” is made up of two words “Rohan” and “Mor”.  “Mor” is Gaelic for great, big, extensive.  “Rohan” is taken from Tolkien’s “Riders of Rohan”, contained in the “Lord of the Rings”, trilogy of books and also from the very old Gaelic for tree, thus the name Rohanmor to us typifies the strength, grace and beauty of the Irish Setter – truly a worthy companion to any mythical God in Irish folk-lore.

Tara had another litter in 1987 when she was mated to Moirabank Sorrel from which we kept Rohanmor Prince Aragon JW.  Prior to this in June of that year we had acquired Bardonhill Overboard and in 1989 we acquired Bonahaird Black Magic who both gained their Irish Show Champion titles and their Junior Warrants.  Bardonhill Overboard was subsequently mated to Bonahaird Black Magic in 1993 and as they say, the rest is history (as you will discover when you scroll through the world of Rohanmor).