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A farmer in Louth is appealing for help after his €20,000 plough was stolen this week.
John Hoey from Castlebellingham said his five-furrow hydraulic Var-width Kverneland plough was stolen in the early hours of Monday.
“At around 1.10am on Monday morning, the plough was taken from our field,” Hoey told the Irish Farmers Journal. “It was a good plough, a bloody good plough. It has served me very well,” he added.
Hoey said that CCTV footage has been used and they saw that a tractor was used to take the plough.
“We have John Deeres around here and we saw that it was a Case IH tractor that had hooked up to it and took it away. We were able to track it on a couple of CCTV [cameras] but it has gone out of sight.”
Local intelligence
Hoey is convinced that local intelligence was involved in the theft of the plough. The farmer, who grows winter barley, winter wheat and winter oats, had finished with the plough for the season.
“The middle of nowhere; the plough was parked in a field in the middle of nowhere. You would have to have known that the plough was there to take it.”
Hoey is now appealing for help to trace the stolen plough.
“It’s a right nice plough. No posh tractor would be able to lift this plough. It would need to be a tractor with plenty of grunt and good weights on the front to carry it. I’m hoping that someone saw the Case tractor and the plough on the move on Sunday night and Monday morning. If someone is offered this type of plough for sale at a price that’s too good to be true, then it probably is,” Hoey said.
An Garda Síochána in Dunleer is investigating and can be contacted on (041) 685 1202.
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