My first Ploughing Championships — nothing could prepare me for this spectacle (2024)

Things are different in the country. A guy I hired to cut down a tree turned up wearing full camouflage gear and armed with a rifle. After six years living in a Kilkenny village, this Australian has learnt to interpret Eircode-shunning locals who give directions by landmark: “turn left at the bad bend” or “go past my home house”.

Dinner at lunchtime, getting “drownded” in the rain, Garth Brooks. The one-finger steering wheel wave and an unnatural obsession with the immersion. Holy water and hurls. Saluting magpies. The local pub that sells toothpaste and a sprong. I’m used to getting stuck behind children driving tractors on main roads. On occasion, I’ll even start a conversation with: “Well ...”

All of which is to say, I thought I had a good idea of what to expect when I pulled on the wellies and headed up the N77 to my first National Ploughing Championships last week. But no amount of culchie inoculation could prepare a blow-in like me for this three-day spectacle.

The jewel in the crown of country Ireland’s calendar, “the ploughing” lived up to its name. The only problem, trudging through mud across the 700-acre site in Ratheniska, Co Laois, was actually finding the ploughing. “I haven’t a notion,” said a young man in a yellow high-vis vest when asked for directions.

“Jaysus, I wouldn’t know,” said the woman handing out toilet paper near a bank of portable lavatories.

We weren’t the only ones struggling with the map among the mayhem and the masses. A retired couple from Wexford arrived just before midday, their first visit to one of Europe’s biggest outdoor agricultural events. “It’s chaos and she wants to go home,” said the man, trailing his wife to the exit. “She lasted 15 minutes.”

We persevered and eventually found the ploughing. We also found Joe Folliard, a semi-retired suckler farmer from Roscommon and veteran volunteer with 22 years to his name. “I’ve been promoted over that time,” he said. “I was five years standing at the gate.” Folliard was working as a field steward on Wednesday, keeping an eye on his assigned plots as seven youngsters in John Deeres, Fords and Valtras ploughed for their counties.

With no clue what I should be looking for, the kindly steward broke it down for me: “Every furrow has to be dead straight, uniform, same depth, same turnover, and the important thing is, when he meets the other section belonging to the other man, they have to finish dead even. Yesterday it was so bad here that the water ran down the furrows, it was a pure mess.”

What is his job today, I asked Folliard. “I’m here to make sure there’s no young kids running in or out while it’s going on and to make sure that no third party goes in and tries to assist with the ploughing.”

I point to a shifty-looking man in a flat cap discreetly nudging a mound of freshly churned sod with his boot. “So, what he’s doing over there ...” I begin.

“He shouldn’t be. No, he shouldn’t be,” Folliard said firmly, with a shake of the head. “But lookit, I’m at this end and he’s at that end. There’s no harm, really. But if he was to overdo it . . .”

Now that I understand the rules I head off to chat to Mairead McCann, who is filming her niece Chloe Heaslip as she churns up the ground in a Case International for Co Cavan. Heaslip’s parents also had trouble navigating the site, McCann said, so she’s recording the 21-year-old’s first competition.

“They’re not up here because they couldn’t find it,” McCann said. “I went around for an hour trying to find it, everyone was sending me in every direction and I seen this lad standing there and I said, ‘Can you tell me where the f***ing ploughing field is?’ Pardon the French.” Heaslip was one of more than 300 competitors vying for national ploughing titles at last week’s championships.

The contest dates back to 1931, born of a disagreement between two farmers — one from Wexford, the other from Kildare — who each argued that their county was home to the best ploughmen. The inaugural competition was held on a 26-acre field just outside Athy, Co Kildare. It has grown into a behemoth, with up to 300,000 flocking to the event every year. But these days the championship is so much more than just ploughing.

Imagine a pop-up city in the middle of nowhere. A place that has everything you could ever need on a farm and where every ice cream truck in Ireland has converged. A carnival of country, or Woodstock with horsepower, where bootcut jeans rule, children collect freebies, politicians flock like flies to cow manure and no one seems to mind the muck.

There was sheep shearing and fashion shows, funfair rides and brown bread baking competitions, pony club games, vintage machinery displays, and 1,700 exhibition stands across a swamp connected by 37km of steel tracking.

Need a new dog mat? Sorted. A septic tank? Take your pick. Fencing and feeding troughs? Form an orderly queue. Artisan chocolate and precast concrete, patio furniture and articulated boom lifts, Irish folk furniture and a taxidermy squirrel. And free pens. Lots of free pens. The only thing missing was a “Lovely Girls Competition” — but the dating agency Love HQ was on hand to matchmake farmers.

The Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians and Anglicans were all represented. Worshippers knelt on plywood in the gala tent where a priest delivered traditional Latin Mass. From stand 326, Denis Nulty, the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, led the quest to find Ireland’s favourite saint. (Six made the shortlist but Anthony of Padua was voted the winner.)

Jimmy Brosnan, a part-time suckler farmer from Currow, Co Kerry, made the annual pilgrimage with his wife, Susan, and their five children. They arrived early and headed to the Defy marquee. “Everyone’s getting a jersey today,” Mrs Brosnan said. Her second youngest, Jessi, seven, chose one with a Massey Ferguson tractor emblazoned across the front. Outside, a group of young men in tweed eyed the tools at the DeWalt stand. A guy near by fell in love with a barbecue. “Jeez, lads,” he said, “that’s the job.”

Leo Himmelreich, 17, was throwing wellies in support of Sosad Ireland, the suicide prevention charity. The muddy boot he slung across the field caught the wind, flew over the fence, and hit a truck.

“He’d be short a welly now,” an onlooker noted. Leo said he got “close to the red thing” [the target] on his three attempts.

An hour later, 995 people met in a field to smash the world record for the largest number of wellies thrown into the air at the same time.

In block 4, Chris McEnroe was wrangling Liss Knockout, a one-year-old Aberdeen Angus bull that’s going up for auction in Thurles, Co Tipperary, next month. The 550kg beast, from John and Sean McEnroe’s prizewinning herd in Oldcastle, Co Meath, is expected to fetch at least €4,000. He’s an attractive animal, which, apparently, is a good thing because it denotes character.

“The head is the money maker,” Chris said as the camera-shy bull refused to pose for photos. “What people are forgetting,” he explained, “they actually have control over you but you have to let them know that you’re in charge.”

At Zurich’s farm insurance stand, Jack and Lily battled for the title of Ireland’s fittest farmer. The man with the mic told the crowd everything we needed to know as the two children did step-ups.

“Jack is from Wexford and Lily is from Cork,” he said. “That’s it, well done. This is tough going . . . this will hurt the legs. That’s it, well done. That’s it, Lily and Jack. So we’re now up to 30 seconds. That’s it, Lily and Jack. They’re in a flow now. That’s it. Come on, give them a little bit of encouragement.

“Come on. That’s it, come on Jack, come on Lily. So the idea here is you start slow and build it up. So we’re now up to one minute. That’s it Jack, that’s it, well done Lily. That’s it, well done, very good.” Lily beat Jack 50 to 42.

Sean McCarthy and his children were inspecting the Keenan MechFiber365+, a 7m long mixer wagon used for feeding livestock. McCarthy, a Tipperary dairy farmer, isn’t in the market for a new one just yet. “Not this year anyway,” he said. “Not until the milk price comes up.”

An older man surveyed a 10m low loader. I asked him whether he was buying a new trailer. He said no and we chatted but, I’ll be honest, I couldn’t understand another word he said.

Then came the rain. “I’m getting my hair wet out there,” said the bald guy taking shelter in the “Government of Ireland” tent. The day drew on and the ground got muckier. But there was never a dull moment. A young lad was drumming up business from an orange picnic table. “Get your vapes and silly string,” the boy hawked.

Teenagers sculled pints behind one of the Heineken marquees as a man relieved himself on the tyre of a Nissan Navara. The Aldi tent was going off as Pat Shortt’s The Jumbo Breakfast Roll blared from speakers.

President Higgins was dead right when he described the farming festival as “the most beloved rendez-vous” on Ireland’s rural calendar.