Rain and muck is what my father used to worry about most over these three days in September. I don’t ever recall him worrying about the wind. For 35 years he was chief exhibition supervisor at the National Ploughing Championships.
He was a postman by profession but from early August to mid-September each year he would use up his leave to work for six weeks with the National Ploughing Association (NPA) on location at that ploughing site. A long-time official with the Wexford County Ploughing Association, he joined the site team marking out the trade stands for the national event in 1971 and, from then until he passed in 2008, he led the team of event service providers and exhibitors, and oversaw the site build.
His absence from our busy house for several weeks was a big thing. It came with its annual rituals. These included watching out for the yearly “getting the site ready” photo which appeared every August in the Farmer’s Journal. It always featured our dad, Anna May McHugh and others standing looking over site drawings.
As kids we also scanned all the newspapers and the RTÉ 1 news bulletins for shots of him at the event. Sometimes he would be pictured with the president or some other VIP being escorted around the site. In our village in the 1970s these glimpses were enough to mark our dad out as a national celebrity.
Apart from ploughing, politics were his passion. He was a Fianna Fáil councillor and was assisted in his task at the ploughing championships each year by his friend, John Moran, a Fine Gael councillor from Laois. Anna May McHugh tells in her autobiography of how the two men had great sport each year over where they would locate the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael stands: “They knew there would be little difference in locations for political parties but they loved to rile each other about it.” Moran still works on the task and would have headed the team mapping out the site for this year’s event in Screggan, Co Offaly.
Weather reports
Each September my dad fretted over weather reports. Some rain on at least one of the three days of the event was inevitable. Farming folk were used to being out in adverse weather conditions. It was the risk of sustained downpours that were his real concern. If the ground didn’t get some opportunity to dry out, the mud could make some or the entire site impassable. In the mid-1980s the NPA finally decided to invest in the placing of a metal walkway on the main concourses which greatly assisted the event’s capacity to handle increasingly large crowds.
Some felt it worth pointing out that Ireland has been winning world ploughing championships for years
I never recall him worrying about wind levels. I imagine that in whatever field in the afterlife that ploughmen and now some ploughwomen gather to practise their craft, there will be much chat this week about how wind conditions, rather than rainfall, led to the cancellation of a day of the event.
On his watch, and under the stewardship of the indomitable Anna May McHugh, and the small team operating from a converted garage, the National Ploughing Championships grew rapidly. The trade and exhibition area had a particular growth spurt after the demise of the RDS Spring Show.
The National Ploughing Championships is now the largest event in the country by far. It’s a peculiar Irish mingling of rural dwellers and curious townies. It has become a compulsory pilgrimage for all officer holders and political wannabes. It is also an established massive national media occasion while every State agency, large voluntary organisation or medium-sized commercial entity turns up to engage with the 300,000 visitors who attend.
Bragging row
My dad often used to remind us that it all began because of a bragging row between a Wexford man, Denis Allen of Gorey, and a Kildare man, JJ Bergin of Athy, over which county had the best ploughmen. On Monday, 16th of February, 1931, the first national ploughing contest took place on 26 acres at Coursetown in Athy. The site for this year’s event stretches across more than 700 acres.
While the ploughing championships now attracts extensive media coverage, one gripe my dad always had, which endures, was about the lack of coverage given generally to ploughing as a sport. There was many a wry smile in our local parish at recent commentary about how the Irish Ladies Hockey Team were the first to compete in a world championship final. While congratulating the hockey team on their great achievement, some felt it worth pointing out that Ireland has been winning world ploughing championships for years.
In our parish alone, John Whelan (no relation) and Martin Kehoe before him have won several gold and silver medals in world ploughing championships between them. Ploughing should no longer be seen as just a minority sport.