Tullamore Show to go ahead at new site next year

THE celebrated Tullamore Show, which had to be cancelled in each of the past two years because of weather conditions, is to go ahead on August 9 next at a new site.

Formal confirmation is expected today that the show, which incorporates the AIB national livestock show, will be held on an elevated 250-acre site on the Butterfield Estate at Greatwood, Blueball, 3km from the site of previous shows.

It is understood Ann Marie Butterfield and her husband, Steven McQuade, offered Tullamore Show the use of their estate to stage next year’s event.

Their neighbours and people in the area have also been most co-operative.

Other landowners in the Tullamore area also offered sites, but after detailed consideration it was decided the Butterfield Estate, which has good road access, represented the best option.

Organisers of the one-day show, the biggest in the country, were inundated with messages of goodwill and solidarity after the weather forced them to call off this year’s show for the second year running.

The show executive has expressed its gratitude to the Hutton-Bury family of the Charleville Estate, the venue of previous shows, for many years of co-operation and continued support in the future.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen was to have officially opened this year’s €700,000 show, which was expected to attract more than 50,000 people.

But the volume of rain that fell across much of Leinster the previous day left the 37-member executive — headed by Tom Maher, chairman, Freda Kinnarney, secretary, and Christy Maye, public relations officer — with little choice but to cancel the event.