Vast site and massive turnout all part of Celtic heritage
They took part in an infectious social spree that embraced most of the great traditions of rural Ireland.
In the process, they again proved that the National Ploughing Championships is a Celtic Cocktail flavoured with the spirit of the Fleadh Cheoil, the buzz of an All-Ireland final, and the earthy feel of an old-style fair day.
Carrie Acheson, the event’s public address announcer, puts the success of the championships, worth an estimated €36m to the economy, dow to the face it is primarily a family-orientated gathering.
That was certainly the case yesterday as fine weather favoured the event in a sprawling, 700-acre site that took on the appearance of a tented town festooned with banners and advertising.
Here, people shopped, bought Christmas toys, tried out boots for traversing the countryside, checked out the fashions and machinery, and chatted with old friends and new acquaintances.
Cows were milked with robotic machines as farmers viewed the latest in hi-tech equipment and other services aimed at reducing production costs.
But only at the ploughing championships could you buy a small garden spade and have change out of a fiver or put a deposit on a Lexiom 630 Montana combine harvester on the Claas stand for €350,000.
President Michael D Higgins, accompanied by wife Sabina, officially opened the championships and said mechanisation and technological innovation have played a decisive role in the modernisation of Irish farming. “Over the last half a century, tractors have gradually displaced the age-old combination of horse and plough. The ploughs used nowadays on Irish farms bear little resemblance to those of the 1950s, and some of the tractors on display in these championships are mighty machines indeed. Yet some of our ploughmen continue to cherish their horses, as the staging of three-horse plough classes shows. They do so out of love for that beautiful animal, the horse, but also because they — and our loyal diggers alike — take pride and pleasure in keeping alive, and even perfecting, an ancient human skill.”
President Higgins said this combination of tradition and innovation is the championships’ recipe for success. “More broadly, I believe that the attraction of this event for all those who attend it — both rural and urban dwellers, contestants, and visitors — derives from the special place that the land and its care, and so many aspects of rural Irish life, hold in our history and in our hearts.
“Authentic and real, the breaking and tilling of soil must be cared for if it is to be passed on to future generations.”
It was a special day for National Ploughing Association managing director Anna May McHugh, who was described by President Higgins as the “great heroine” of the event, which is being held in her native Laois for the fifth time.
The attendance on the opening day of the championships was some 29,000 up on last year. The association thanked the public for following Garda traffic directions and said a similar response will continue today.
The scale and breadth of the site overwhelmed many visitors, particularly one man who looked at an aerial view of the scene and exclaimed: “Holy Mother of God. It is the size of a town.”
