Next Sunday is the day of Moynalty's Steam Threshing Festival, which is, of course, more than that it's something like the Festival of Lughnasa, which used to be celebrated at Teltown, only a few miles away. It has a bit of everything. This year they have produced an attractive brochure "A Chronicle of Articles by Members of the Local Community", with good illustrations, to mark the 21st Steam Threshing.
It is all a remarkable achievement by what must be regarded as a community of friends. As John Sheridan, who presided over it for twenty years, writes: "We always had something different each year; something that would not be seen any place else, and that was our success." But many are attracted yearly by the huge machines belching smoke, reminding of the time when work was work.
The brochure carries a note. from the pancake ladies, who use a secret recipe and cook in the open, over a turf fire on a griddle. They make colcannon, too. Dancing at the crossroads gave the idea of a dancing deck: Irish dancing, old time waltzes, storytelling and recitation. You will also see wonderful working horses, for many, one of the highlights. Roasting a pig on a spit was introduced in 1990. Mud turf may not be in your experience, but Paddy Gaynor explains, and demonstrates with others on the day.
Not only does everyone in the district seem to come into the story, but a lady from Vienna was there last year and wrote that it would be hard to find another community that would come together to give such a day of pleasure to so many. This year's extras include a gymnastic team from Shercock, basketweaving, woodturning and carving, like wise pewter metalwork. Last year there was an impressive and moving area where potatoes of the Famine years, which had begun just 150 years before, were shown growing, with some dug out for inspection. Many varieties. This year, the progress of the blight will be similarly illustrated, with some of its consequences. There's a map in the brochure showing where the various exhibits are. Around the bottom of the field flows the river known as the Borora (also the Owenroe or Moynalty). Gerry Farrell writes about an eighth deadly sin. "Move over, sloth," he urges, "and make way for pollution. This lovely little river of ours supplied us with drinking water for almost fifty years. We dare not drink it any more."
But there is good water from another source now replacing the old system. Let the visitor not worry. Where is Moynalty? God bless us, doesn't every know it's about four miles from Kells, County Meath.