Rural Ireland - Legacy of fear over acts of thuggery

THE French government could hardly have chosen a more appropriate day to honour the legendary force of nature behind the National Ploughing Championships, its managing director Anna May McHugh.

Yesterday, the French ambassador to Ireland, Jean-Pierre Thébault, presented Mrs McHugh with the Ordre du Mérite Agricole medal for her services to agriculture, on an auspicious day for the championships, when a record 127,000 people made the journey to the mammoth event.

It was an honour well deserved, acknowledging a remarkable contribution to the growth and success of the ploughing championships, from modest beginnings when she became first involved in 1951 to being the biggest outdoor agricultural show in Europe today. It’s been a very long time since she had to field phone calls from men enquiring about the ploughing — insisting that they wanted to speak to her husband because a woman could not possibly be in charge.