Sheer scale of Ploughing has to be seen to be believed
The crowds returned to the National Ploughing Championships at Screggan, Tullamore, Co Offaly. Picture Dan Linehan
The scale of this year’s National Ploughing Championships in Screggan could not have been imagined 50 years ago, when the annual event was staged in Wells, Co Wexford.
But that gathering which attracted an estimated 20,000 spectators over two days helped to inspire the growth of the annual festival into one of the largest outdoor rural pageants in Europe.
Anna May McHugh, who had become managing director of the National Ploughing Association three years earlier, was broadening the public appeal of the event.
Two years earlier when it was held in Watergrasshill, Co Cork, the indications were that it was moving to a new level.
Machinery exhibits were up, sheepdog trials and other attractions were introduced, and food tents were erected to cater for the visitors.
Bennetsbridge, Co Kilkenny, hosted the event the following year when the number of exhibits rose to 100 and ploughing competitors from 21 counties took part.
Threshing, vintage displays, sheaf tossing and bale collecting were among the popular side attractions. Fashion shows and other innovative attractions would follow later.
When the 47th championships opened at Wells on October 13, 1976, there were 171 trade stands in place. That was 40 more than were at the World Contest at another Wexford venue, Rosegarland, three years previously.
A 300-acre site owned by farmers Noel Hatton and Richard Graham came alive with activity as 10,000 people flocked to the venue for the opening day. A carnival atmosphere prevailed with glorious sunshine adding to the enjoyment of the crowd.
Journalist Monica Carr reported that people familiar with frozen toes and fingers at October ploughing matches even shed their coats as if it was the middle of August.
Exhibitors were delighted to have the space to showcase and demonstrate different types of farm machinery including tractors, ploughs and cultivators.
The value of the machinery on display was estimated at over £1.5 million pounds, and the turnover at the trade stands was put at nearly £500,000.
A total of 168 ploughmen and women from the island of Ireland took part. For the first time, they included four from Northern Ireland.
They were from four different counties, Tyrone, Robert Brown, Cookstown; Antrim, William Hood, Ahoghill; Derry James Scott, Moneymore and Down, James McGladdery, Cumber.
They were warmly welcomed by NPA managing director Anna May McHugh, who said they added to the competitiveness of the event.
"We invited them in previous years. But this is the first year they decided to come. We are delighted about it," she told reporters.
Laurence McMillan, chairman, Northern Ireland Ploughing Association, and World Contest winner in 1959, was one of the judges in the senior tractor class.
In a reciprocal gesture, two ploughing competitors from Wexford took part in the Northern Ireland championships in Magherafelt, Co Derry, the following month.
They were Joe Shanahan, Oylegate, who won the senior tractor title for the first time in Wells and Majella Ffrench, New Ross, who was crowned Queen of the Plough.
Wexford dominated that championships in Wells, being placed first in five of the nine classes with Robert O’Connor (U-21), Martin Kehoe (U-28), and Joseph Roche, representing Rockwell in the agricultural colleges class, adding the successes of Shanahan and Ffrench to the honours list.
Michael Murphy, St. Mullins, and John Tracey, Garryhill, won the county team title for Carlow. John Halpin, Wicklow, took the senior horse class. There were also wins for West Cork’s Ben Buttimer in the ¾ stubble test and Kerry’s Thomas Healy in the junior tractor championship.
A 32-year-old Australian, Barry John Frawley, with ancestral roots in Clare, was among the competitors in one class, having been invited by Irish team members at the previous World Contest in Sweden.
It was a memorable ploughing for Tim Flood, Clonroche, Co Wexford, who won the single sheepdog trials. He was one of the most versatile sportsmen to have ever competed at the championships.
An international sheepdog trial competitor, he won twelve All-Ireland titles and appeared several times on the BBC's One Man and His Dog programme, which ran for 23 years, had up to eight million viewers and was generally presented by Phil Drabble.
Tim Flood was even more widely known, however, as a celebrated Wexford hurler on a team led by Nicky Rackard. He won three All Ireland medals, played in three other finals, had six Leinster titles and three National League medals.
Tim Flood, who died, in 2014, played 38 championship games for Wexford and made116 appearances in the purple and gold jersey. He was also a noted musician.
There was Indian Summer-type weather when he competed in the sheepdog trials on the opening day of the 1976 championships.
But there was a direct contrast on the second day after the entire south-east was storm-lashed overnight, knocking down two tents, at the ploughing site and forcing the cancellation of some events.
Journalist Dick Brazil reported it was only the second time in the 45-year history of the championships that it was disrupted by the weather.
That was long before the laying of hard surface trackways and the ploughing competitors faced major challenges with the mud.
Derry competitor James Scott summed up the conditions: “Tractors were just floating around the place. It was impossible to get started and to control the tractors and ploughs.”
It was to the credit of all involved that the classes were completed except for the senior tractor championships which had two components – ploughing on lea and stubble grounds.
A total of 28 competitors took part in the lea ploughing on opening day, but with a trip to the World Contest in Holland the following year on offer it was decided to call off the stubble event.
It was re-scheduled for Joe Gardiner’s farm in Oulart the following Thursday with Joe Shanahan taking the title and being selected to represent the country at the Word Contest, along with his nearest rival Carlow’s Michael Murphy.
Despite the conditions, the overall championships were deemed a success by the organisers. Wexford County Agricultural Officer and NPA assistant managing director, Michael T. Connolly, said he was very happy with the turnout, both of competitors and spectators.
The opening day attendance of President Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, added to the sense of occasion. During his two-hour visit, he toured the site, watched some of the ploughing and praised Anna May McHugh and the NPA on the scale of the event which included 13 female competitors compared with four the previous year.
He also quoted the Roman statesman Cato the Elder [234-149 BC), who described ploughing as the supreme foundation of agricultural success and stressed that it must be done thoroughly, at the proper season and strictly without irregular furrows.
That practical advice written in Latin some 2,186 years ago and later translated into many languages will still be followed by those seeking national ploughing titles in Screggan.
