The Durrow Scarecrow Festival is stuffed with ambition

Once upon a time young children raced wildly through fields waving wooden clappers so as to protect the seeds of the crop from rabid avian beaks. But when the Plague wiped out a generation of child labourers in the 17th century, farmers had to get wily when engaging their winged foe. And so the scarecrow came to be.

These days, the Durrow Development Fund (DDF) uses scarecrows to attract, not repel, thousands of visitors to the quaint rural village for its annual Scarecrow Festival, so they are no longer constructed from rotting animal flesh, pelts, or skulls.