IRELAND'S most successful sheep farmers are working around the clock in these dark winter days as the first of the lambs arrive.

Leading sheep farmers now arrange it so their newborn lambs will be ready for the lucrative European markets at Easter, just 13 weeks away. This is the peak time for lamb consumption in our export markets.

European consumers dictate when the lamb's life cycle begins and ends for their festive tables, indicating that farming has become a market driven science.

But still, a lamb is a lamb and will remain one of the symbols of life and innocence, no matter the economic agenda.