Camross woman Mary Phelan is the first person to feature on our Ploughing Q&A this week as she recalls her early experience going to the event when it was in Ballacolla, her seven years working at it with the Farmers Journal and how she’s looking forward to helping out with the LaoisToday Snapchat coverage this week.
1 – What’s your involvement in/relationship with the Ploughing Championship?
This is the first year in seven years that I don’t have to go to the Ploughing – this year I’m going for the craic. I worked for the Farmers Journal for seven years (just finished up this week!) and so have been at the ploughing with them, for 2-3 days for the last seven years.
It’s a very busy event for the Farmers Journal and everyone is like zombies in the office on the Friday, for some reason the Ploughing just takes it out of you. I particularly enjoyed when the Ploughing was in Ratheniska and lots of people from Laois called into the stand to say hello to me which was really nice.
My Dad is a farmer and when I was younger he would take my brothers and I out of school for a day to go to the Ploughing – we were delighted. Then I went one or two years as a teenager, basically chasing boys.
2 – What’s your earliest Ploughing Championship memory?
Stealing cobs of corn from a field in Ballacolla and taking them home and cooking them!
3 – What’s your favourite thing about the Ploughing?
I think it’s a fantastic celebration of the Irish agricultural industry. I love how the media spotlight turns to farming for three days – it’s very important that farming issues are given airtime as agriculture is an extremely important facet of our economy – one in eight jobs in Ireland is supported by agriculture.
I think the Ploughing is a great social event for farmers and rural people and I think it’s three days where the focus is on them and their industry and I think it’s really important that we have that, thanks to the Ploughing – and Anna May McHugh!
4 – What’s the most unusual thing you’ve seen/experienced at the Ploughing?
Tractor football last year was the maddest thing I’ve seen – two teams of three tractors against three pushing a giant ball around a field – mad but a brilliant, ingenious concept!
5 – Describe your typical Ploughing day?
Given that I’ve been at the Ploughing for the past seven years with the Farmers Journal, a typical day with them would see me arrive on site at 9am. Most of my colleagues stay in a hotel locally and are bussed to the site for about 7.15am but because I’m from Camross and because the Ploughing has been held in the Midlands for many of the last seven years I stayed at home, got a lie-in and would leave Camross around 7.30am.
With traffic and the walk from the field to our stand I’d usually need at least that amount of time to arrive on site at 9am. Then I’d be on the Farmers Journal stand for the day, leaving intermittently do radio interviews or Midday on TV3 which came down to the Ploughing in 2015. A lot of readers call into the stand which is really nice as for them it’s an opportunity to meet the journalists behind the articles they read every week and for us it was an opportunity to get feedback and hear about what they’d like to see covered in Irish Country Living.
Again because I’m from Laois and the Ploughing has been held in the Midlands for the last number of years a lot of my family and friends would call in to say hello – something which I don’t think was much appreciated by my boss as there’s a lot work to be done on the stand, and we are busy selling issues of our glossy magazine Irish Country Magazine.
Neven Maguire does cookery demonstrations on our stand, three times a day so it’s always very busy when he gets going so I help out with that as well, giving out booklets and tickets for the raffle for Neven’s food once he has it cooked!
6 – What one thing would you change about the Ploughing if you could?
I think it’s a very commercial event – most of the stands there are trying to sell you something – whether it’s a product or a brand. I’d like to see some activities/events that are created purely with the attendee in mind – something enjoyable that isn’t a marketing tool to promote something.
I also think the entry fee should be cheaper. And I think the food area could be jazzed up – there’s a lot of great food outlets there but the seating/areas where you eat could be made a bit nicer, in my opinion.
7 – What are you most looking forward to this year?
Keeping my friend Bernard Rochford company on his Laois Today Snapchat takeover! Bman (as he’s called) is hilarious, great craic and absolutely loves attention so he will be in his element and I’m really looking forward to watching him in action and seeing if there’s anything I can do to make his star shine brighter!!!
8 – Who’s the most famous person you’ve come across?
I’ve met lots of national radio broadcasters and television presenters through my own work with the Farmers Journal at the Ploughing. However if I had to pick out a favourite celeb memory at the Ploughing it was meeting Gerald Fleming the weather presenter when I was about eight. I was awestruck and I got his autograph – it made my day!
SEE ALSO – WATCH: The reason one of the LaoisToday team isn’t going to the Ploughing this year
