Dust bowl rather than mudslide greet plough champions

AFTER the summer we’ve had you mightn’t believe it.

Not a drop of rain has fallen anywhere around the 500-acre site at the Ploughing Championships in the last six weeks. And if the dry spell continues, the National Ploughing Association of Ireland may have to water the ground to soften it out for the competitions today and tomorrow.

Event PRO, Anna Marie McHugh, boasted in the run-up to the event that she could skip around the 200 acres of competition ground and 300 acres of car parking in her slippers. Yesterday, she had her shades on and discarded her jacket.