About Sheep Sanctuary and Our Founder

About The Founder, Sharon Lawlor
Sheep Sanctuary began 13 years ago 

How It All Vegan

A Spiritual Journey to the Light

Yes we are called Sheep sanctuary BUT it all began with my love for cows ~ and an old cow and her dying calf

In 2008 my much-loved father died, and it was one of the worst days of my life. He had suffered a stroke, and with very little help or knowledge from the medical profession on how to lower his cholesterol levels, it was only months later that Dad died of a suspected heart attack.

At that point, I felt totally lost.

Life without my dad seemed unthinkable, and I felt so alone and totally lost without him as he had always been my crutch in times of need.

I started to see things which baffled me, and I was bombarded by the number 33 and especially 333, which I later found out was very powerful in the spiritual world. 13 years later this number connection has never left me.

For a good few months after my dad died I started to question my own life and purpose.

At this point, my daughter and I had built a very good business in design and manufacture, and we worked flat out to keep up with the demand. Yet I found it meant nothing to me—the money felt pointless and I began to lose the will to keep going. I felt like I was just existing.

One day I asked myself: “If I died tomorrow, who would know, who would really care, would I move on from this journey feeling fulfilled, what was the purpose of my existence?”

I Felt Like Something was missing and whilst on the internet I stumbled upon a graphic video of an animal slaughter. The images haunted me and I started to see things differently and slowly moved over to veganism after 13 years of being a vegetarian and that’s where my life really began.

I handed the business to my daughter and moved to the countryside.

It was a smallholding of only a couple of acres but it was a start. In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields it looked perfect and I guess to a certain extent it was. I witnessed many things that deeply upset me, but I learnt a lot and the experiences turned me into the person that I am today.

Not long after we had moved into the farmhouse, a herd of cows appeared in the field right next to our home. I felt gutted. I was a vegetarian, but I hated seeing animals that I know are in the food chain industry as I thought there was nothing more I could do to help them. Often driving through the country I would cover my eyes if we passed a field of cows as it troubled me so much.

NOW I had them literally in my garden.

I could no longer look away as they would stand curiously looking at me from the cattle grid. I found myself drawn to them and felt so sad when I visited them, they looked so afraid. I had never been close to a cow, let alone made eye contact with one.

I fell in love with cows, but with the newfound love came such total and utter sadness.

So I dedicated my life to helping animals.

Desperate to save a cow we visited a cow farm and spoke to the owner who thought we were crazy to start with, then he understood what we wanted to do and he took us to his “odds and sods” department.

In this area was an old cow (18 years old) with a dying calf at her side. She had given birth to calves every year of her life that were either taken for meat or if a female, put back into the herd stocks to produce more calves for the beef industry (but I will hasten to add that as cruel as this is, this way of farming is far kinder than factory farming of today, as calves do at least get to stay with the mother).

We looked at this huge old cow with bulging eyes and this scrawny little calf by her side. The farmer said that she would be “Burnt” in September, due to her age and BSE (mad cow disease) she could not be killed for meat… which again seems crazy, she could produce calves for the meat industry even though she could only be slaughtered and burnt.

We knew nothing about cows other than I loved them, but the thought of a huge cow and a dying calf terrified us… we left.

No sooner than arriving home we could not get the vision out of our mind, and the next day we went back for her.

As we drove away we chatted about names… of course, it had to be “Mamamoo”. We looked at our little girl “Storm” and said what shall we call the baby calf?

“Luvu” was her reply and it stuck.

We saved Mamamoo, baby Luvu and a random Hefier that reminded me of a bull I connected with years ago that gave me my love for cows. As we drove away there was a real loud moo and I looked back and just one cow was standing looking at us. “Who is that?” I asked the farmer.
He replied “Her calf from last year. “
“Keep her, I’m coming back for her.” And weeks later we collected Mamamoo’s previous calf “Freckles”. 

The story continues…

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