Ploughing teams ready to take on world’s best
John Treacy, of Carlow, and Sean Keating, of Wexford, will spend a week practising and preparing in Switzerland for the event, which will be held on September 8 and 9.
It will be the veteran John Treacy’s sixth attempt at the world title. He was runner-up on three occasions, 1973, 1974 and 1980, and is hoping to go one better this year. He was once beaten into second place by the absolute minimum of a quarter of a point.
His partner on this occasion, Sean Keating, will at 25 years of age be Ireland’s youngest ever representative. But he will be following in the footsteps of his father, Michael, who competed in the world event in 1975 and 1976.
Also travelling with the team will be Jimmy Grainger of Kildare, an immediate past chairman of the National Ploughing Association who will be a judge for the championships, and Eamonn Treacy, team manager and substitute ploughman.
Eamonn, a son of John Treacy, has already ploughed for Ireland in 1998 and 1999 when he won the gold medal for grassland ploughing.
Minister of State Noel Treacy will wish the world championship team members and officials well when he sees them off at Dublin Airport this morning.
Another skilled ploughman, Dan Donnelly, of Wexford, will travel out next week to compete as Ireland’s representative at the European Reversible Ploughing Championships in the Netherlands.
He too will be keeping up a strong family tradition, as both his father, Billy, and brother, Tom, are well known in ploughing competitions in Wexford. Billy was also runner-up in the national three-furrow event in 1999.
The European championships will take place at Numansdorp, near Rotherdam, on September 15. Lennie Matthews, of Offaly, a highly respected exponent of reversible ploughing, will travel as coach.
Meanwhile, preparations for this year’s national ploughing championships, which will be held in Ballacolla, Co Laois on September 24-26, are well underway. Work on the site layout began this week.
More then 300 competitors will take part in 21 championships at the event, which is expected to attract more than 100,000 people over the three days.
