on February 28, 2026
A Story of Identity & Perseverance
Joseba Attard
The Man Who Brought the Ikurrina to the Shearing Floor
“If this is a matter between nations, then we are also a nation. Wales, Scotland… are also there.”— Joseba Attard, addressing the Golden Shears World Council, Edinburgh, June 2023
The Roots
A Craft Older Than Nations
Sheep shearing has been at the heart of Basque rural life for millennia. The Latxa — the Basque Country’s indigenous breed, perfectly adapted to the wind-scoured Pyrenean highlands — has been shorn every spring since before written memory. With approximately one million sheep still grazing across the seven provinces, shearing is not folklore. It is a living, economically vital practice.
Within this pastoral world, shearing carried a social weight beyond mere necessity. The traditional system of auzolan — communal mutual-aid labour binding farmsteads together — made the shearing day a collective event. Neighbours gathered. Skill was on public display. The fastest and cleanest shearer earned lasting community recognition.
Over centuries, this informal competitive culture was folded into the herri kirolak — the Basque rural sports tradition — alongside log-cutting, stone-lifting, and grass-scything. To host a shearing competition was to assert that this knowledge, this practice, and this people had a distinct existence worth celebrating.
The Latxa Breed
Coarse-fleeced, strong-willed, and irreplaceable
The Latxa (from the Basque latz, “rough”) is a dual-purpose breed: its rich milk produces Idiazabal cheese, one of the most protected products in the Basque culinary tradition. Its coarse open fleece demands strength, rhythm, and experience from the shearer — making every shearing a test of skill as much as endurance.
The Journey
From Auzolan to the World Stage
Centuries of tradition
The Auzolan Culture
The Basque system of communal mutual-aid labour — auzolan — made shearing a social occasion. Neighbours gathered, skill was on display, and the reputation of a fast, clean shearer spread valley by valley. This community-embedded competition was the seed of everything that followed.
1840s – mid 20th century
The Great Pastoral Diaspora
Economic pressure drove thousands of Basque shepherds to the sheep stations of Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, New Zealand, and Argentina. They carried their shearing skill abroad — adapting it to merino and rambouillet breeds — and kept the tradition alive across generations, at a time when rural depopulation threatened it at home.
1950s – 1980s
The Herri Kirolak Revival
As industrialisation emptied the Basque countryside, a conscious cultural movement preserved the skills of rural life as competitive sport. Shearing competitions appeared in festival programmes across Gipuzkoa and Navarre, conducted entirely in Basque, keeping alive both the technique and the cultural identity bound up in it.
A Structural Injustice
Competing as Spain
For decades, Basque shearers who competed internationally did so under the Spanish national flag. Without state recognition, the Basque Country had no standing to enter as a distinct team. Joseba Attard himself represented his homeland at World Council assemblies under the title of Spanish representative — before he decided that had to change.
June 21, 2023
Edinburgh — The Vote That Changed Everything
At the Golden Shears World Council assembly held during the World Championships at Edinburgh’s Royal Highland Show, Joseba Attard presented the case for Basque recognition. The Council voted unanimously. From that date, shearers from all seven Basque provinces could compete internationally beneath the ikurrina.
March 4–7, 2026
Masterton, New Zealand — The First World Championship
The Basque team takes the floor at the War Memorial Stadium in Masterton — the spiritual home of international shearing sport — competing under their own name and flag for the first time in history. The skill that was exported by necessity a century ago returns, formalised and celebrated, to the heartland of the sport.
The Turning Point
A Unanimous Vote Heard Across the Pyrenees
Joseba Attard’s presentation to the World Council was not a political argument. It was a cultural and practical one. The Golden Shears World Council already recognised Scotland, Wales, England, and Northern Ireland as separate competing nations. If they could, why not the Basque Country?
Attard arrived with the facts: a native breed (the Latxa), an established national championship (Euskal Herriko Txapelketa), a certified training programme (the Artzain Eskola in Arantzazu), and a formal governing association (EAME). The Council’s own criteria for membership required exactly these four elements. The Basque Country fulfilled every one.
Many in the room were moved to tears. The vote was unanimous. Back home, politicians had told Attard the goal was impossible. He had pursued it anyway — through sport, not politics — and he had won.
“Since we fulfilled all of those conditions, they couldn’t say no, and they accepted us. I told them: if this is a matter between nations, then we are also a nation.”— Joseba Attard · Berria, September 2024
Why It Matters
More Than a Competition. A Reclamation.
Recognition Through Sport, Not Politics
What Attard achieved in Edinburgh, Basque political actors have repeatedly failed to achieve in larger arenas. Basque football, rugby, and pelota remain locked out of international competition under their own name. Shearing found a way in — through functional cultural criteria, not state sovereignty.
Preservation of a Living Language
EAME operates entirely in Basque — moztaileak, artilea, artaldea, artaziak. Training new shearers means transmitting a language alongside a skill. The competition floor is simultaneously a classroom in Basque identity, ensuring the vocabulary of this craft survives in active use.
A Model for Stateless Nations
The argument Attard made in Edinburgh — that a people can be recognised through their pastoral identity and institutional infrastructure — is one that dozens of stateless nations are watching closely. Shearing has shown it is possible to earn a seat at the international table on cultural grounds alone.
Coming Full Circle
Masterton 2026
New Zealand and the American West were the destinations of the great Basque pastoral diaspora. The skill exported by necessity a century ago — carried to Nevada, Idaho, and the sheep stations of the southern hemisphere — returns to the heartland of international shearing sport, this time under the ikurrina.
Ardi ibili, herri bat gara.
“Where sheep walk, we are a people.”
Official slogan of Euskal Ardi Moztaileen Elkartea (EAME)