The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
ON Sunday in Cratloe the Clare Ploughing Association County Championships will mark the 50th anniversary of the organisation in the county, with the 2011 final being held on land of the Brickenden family.
Established in 1961, the association’s stronghold is mainly in South-East Clare including Newmarket, Sixmilebridge, Cratloe, Meelick and Parteen.
“Years back, West Clare used to be involved as well, before the Clare Ploughing Association started. There used to be ploughing matches in Cooraclare and Newmarket all through the 40s and 50s,” Newmarket man John Meehan, director of National Ploughing Association, told The Clare Champion.
“There was ploughing in Newmarket for 20 years before that. Even in the late 1930s, there is a record of a ploughing match in Newmarket,” John added.
The National Ploughing Association is 80 years this year, with the Clare group linking with the national body 50 years ago.
Naturally, ploughing in 2011 is rather different to the style which pertained in 1961.
“At the start, it was all smaller tractors. I started in 1967. We have better equipment now and bigger tractors. The old tractors we used are still ploughing but they’re in the vintage class rather than the conventional,” Mr Meehan said.
He maintains that the skill level was higher in the 1960s.
“I don’t think it’s as high because now it’s all stubble. Stubble is where there has been corn in a field.
“That’s easy enough to plough. The old ploughing is lea, where you go into a green field and make it all brown and have no green showing. I think there was more skill in that. The All-Ireland is now 90% or maybe more on stubble ground. The big thing now is the reversible ploughing,” John added.
The Clare Ploughing Association has produced an impressive colour commemorative programme, which details the history of the organisation and includes several old photographs. The Corbett family from Stonehall are featured in it.
“Ploughing seems to run in families. The grandfather, (John), the son (Frank) and the grand-daughter (Sineád) have all won All-Ireland titles,” Mr Meehan said of the Corbett’s remarkable achievement.
In fact, Sineád Corbett became the first female to win a main category in the National Ploughing Championships in 2001, when she won the U-21 title in Offaly.
All of Munster will be represented in Cratloe on Sunday with ploughmen and women from Galway, Offaly, Laois and Kilkenny also competing.
“We will have competitions in conventional, reversible, vintage and horse ploughing. A feature will be a display of vintage machinery and modern machines. Loy digging will also feature. This is done with a special spade and it’s a skill that is making a comeback,” Mr Meehan explained.
The Song of the Plough
by JJ Bergin.
Turn down the green, O: Man who ploughs;
Guide thou the plough with sharpened share
Turn up the brown to sapphire skies;
Mankind on thee for bread relies.
Bright shines the sun and God looks down
On man, on beast on hill and town,
Then sow the seed in mellowed earth,
To harrow’s sway and wild birds’ mirth.
The joyful hum of threshing time,
And later drone as mills make flour –
Mankind gets bread; but what man thinks
It was your sweat that forged the links?
But, sure the world must bend its will
In every age to ploughmen’s skill;
Then, O: Hurrah, you men who toll,
You’re masters of the sullen soil.
Turn up the brown, O: Men who ploughs!
The waken’d earth to warming sun,
And give all men their daily bread,
Your work is God’s for He had said
He’ll bless your work – your plough-team too –
Reward is sure for what you do.
Then, O: Hurrah, Sons of the soil,
God speed the plough, God bless the toil.
