Holy Plough !

Despite tweeting that a menopausal spinster required a lift to the Ploughing Match with the hashtag #notmakinganymoreland  and #farmerwantsawife , and being assured that there were grown men sobbing in drills lookin' a woman like me, I did not make it to the field in Laois where all the gallantry was going on until the last day.

Record numbers visited the three day event this year with over 230,000 people flocking in their droves to Co Laois  - so I had to bate my way in.  They came in baby buggies, on mobility scooters , in cars, buses and on the backs of tractors.  If they  hadn’t come ready prepared for the muck with walking sticks, they bought walking poles for making their way about . 

There were wild eyed men reeling from stand to stand clutching Done Deal bags, Farmers Journal bags, Stihl baseball caps, calendars and anything else that was free.  The event was well organised with plenty of NPA (National Ploughing Association) stewards on hand for car parking -  one particular steward so  vigorously waving his arms to direct traffic to the other side of a field, that bemused drivers smiled, and parked drivers commented on the  imminent likelihood of  his having a heart attack or stroke.

"He collapsed above in the far field, your honour"

You could get an arse for a cat here.  

 There were Fashion Shows, ICA home-baking and needle craft. There were country women in headscarves with brown bread and blackcurrant jam. There were bumper cars and candy floss and chips.   There were lads demonstrating milking mats, pumps, hoses, generators, gates, trailers, SUV’s, buggies and jeeps. There were reams of tickets for Raffles with prizes of dinners and weekends away and Tractors. There were fine lumps of bastes in the form of Aberdeen Angus, Limosuines and Charolais lying around the place chawing hay.

Someone had made a cow out of cheddar cheese with grated cheese strewn around its feet for grass, a man on standby guarding it in case someone took a lump out of it with the starvation.

On display were Antique tractors, thrashers, agricultural tools, fans, and a mock up old style cottage on wheels -  on invitation I found myself sitting inside having a cup of tea and a cake by the coal fire – how surreal?  

Bill, the cottage owner informs he had  cooked  a full dinner of bacon/cabbage and spuds and fed a considerable number of hungry people that day.

 A number of men gave me the eye. I gave it back.

 “Bring down the suckling heifer with the red water beside the far gate” says one to the other.

Spotted marching around in the crowd was Celebrity Gardener Diarmaid Gavin, and Gerry Adams.

They were NOT together.

Enda Kenny was like a one man combine harvester as he stormed through the crowd, high fiveing children and pressing housewives arms, a lone protester shouting in his face, ignored. 

I spotted a signpost for “Batchelors in Trouble” (you couldn’t throw a kerrs pink without hitting 50 of them ) and assumed  it was some kind of dating agency for distraught farmers - on inspection - (after sliding through the muck with my breath in my fist )  it turned out to be two old codgers dressed like  Wurzels selling CD’s.

There was not a lovely girls competition but one can only assume that there were a number of them there, working the fields and lanes.   Daithi O Se came down from the Wesht for the Craic. There was a lot of apple tart consumed and various and vicarious earnest conversation about grants and subsidies leaning over railings of display gates, hitching up trousers and whistling.

 Sheep were corralled and inspected, horses were jumped and brushed,  and children were spun  hysterically on  hurdy gurdys and led away sobbing on legs like a newborn foal.  Chats were had,looks were exchanged, numbers swapped,  alliances forged and broken, but as a lesson in Irishness, and in displaying a heritage, a culture and lifestyle we seem to have forgotten  that we came from, it was a whore of a day out.

I’m off to squeeze a few bullocks in my house coat and wellingtons, just leave the few hundredweight of calf nuts beside the slatted shed door.

M.D.M.  Sept 26^th.