Farming special - Day 3: Seanad gate shenanigans and Blessed Micheál of Ballinlough

Mud-slinging and auction politics eclipsed the more traditional sports at the National Ploughing Championships yesterday.

Despite Indian summer sunshine hardening the ground, Tánaiste Joan Burton was left delicately trying to avoid getting a heel caught in the trail of political cow-dung left in the wake of Enda Kenny’s Seanad-packing shenanigans.

And as the Tánaiste weaved her way through the temporary tent city of the festival, Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin was on hand, in a seemingly never-ending state of shock around every corner, permanently appalled that any government could even contemplate behaving in such a way.