Ploughing ahead in the nation’s fields of dreams

Tomorrow morning, from just before dawn, the first of probably 200,000 people will set foot on the site of the 2013 National Ploughing Championships.

It has been 70 years since the ploughing folk came to Ratheniska for the first time in 1943 for what would have been a very different event.

Just thinking about what’s ahead tomorrow, it would be hard not to stop and wonder did our founders ever imagine, even in their wildest dreams, the legacy that they were passing down through the generations.

How would they feel if they were walking into the site tomorrow morning knowing that what they had created had become an event that is a household name in every farmer’s kitchen across the country, the biggest “gig” in Ireland this year, and by far the largest National Ploughing Championships worldwide.

When I think in that way about the Ploughing, I I feel very honoured to be doing the work I do and being a small cog in the wheel that makes the Ploughing what it is.

Last week, we held what we call our final “organising committee meeting”. This committee is formed in the local community, usually six to eight months before the Ploughing, and we invite local people to become part of the event by volunteering to co-ordinate entertainment, fashion shows, livestock, vintage, and many more sections.

The hall was full and everyone reported what stage of preparation their section was at. The air of excitement and anticipation was building and everyone was ready for the event to get started.

Outside, the usually dark, small village was alight with the Ploughing lights. When everyone had reported and all questions were answered, tea and sandwiches were distributed and the chat was all about the events of the week ahead.

There is no doubting in my mind that the age of volunteerism is not dead and gone — it’s about how you motivate people to get behind a project and make them part of it.

So when it comes to the night before the Ploughing there are always a few things that still have me in awe — a final trip around the trade arena shortly before midnight just to make sure everything is where it should be and the sound of silence in such a vast city is quite awesome.

The sight of the prize bulls laying down in a fresh bed of the finest straw and dozing, with not a thought or awareness of what is ahead, or the fluttering of the many, many flags suspended high above this exhibition arena.

Finally, a quick stop at the Tractor Assembly Arena to see more than 300 tractors and ploughs lined up and ready to take to the fields, and one has to wonder what names are going to be written into the history books of the National Ploughing Association as the Champions that win their title in Ratheniska, Co Laois in 1913.

I wish good luck to the many competitors in their bid to be national champions, good business to the companies that have put such preparation into their exhibits, and may this year be one of the best Ploughing experiences that our thousands of visitors have from the time they leave home until they return.

* Anna Marie McHugh is assistant managing director of the National Ploughing Association