We kicked off 2016 with a visit to Lisbeg Farms in January, an impressive beef finishing unit in Eyrecourt, Co Galway. Farmer Richard Bourns gives us the grand tour.

Of all the field tests filmed by the Irish Farmers Journal’s machinery team this year, the JCB 435S loading shovel was the most popular. See why below.

In our Farmer Know-How series, there was huge interest in this job everyone will have to deal with sooner or later: hanging a gate.

Less DIY, but also a beautiful building job: this curved handling unit for stress-free cattle management in Co Monaghan.

This year’s harvest was not the first one for 81-year-old Jimmy Reilly, filmed as he cut barley with his 1975 New Holland combine in Co Meath.

Meanwhile, Irish Farmers Journal machinery correspondent Darren Bailey joined Gary Rynhart from Gorey, Co Wexford, on his harvesting trek across the US.

In August, with just days to go to the Rose of Tralee contest, My Farming Week visited Monaghan Rose Pamela Allen, a nurse and part-time dairy farmer from Drumcruttin.

One of the winners at this year’s Innovation Arena during the National Ploughing Championships was Tom Corrigan’s Eurotec bale chaser, which self-loads 16 round bales and offloads them in a neat stack.

Also unveiled at this year’s Ploughing, the Fendt 1050 is the world’s largest conventional tractor. Darren Bailey got behind the wheel.

With renewed interest in dry wall building under GLAS, Peter Varley asked English stonemason Michael Fearnhead for construction advice.

Peter also generated massive interest with Derek Cummins’s ram pump, which supplies water to drinking troughs without using fuel or electricity. He later demonstrated how to build your own ram pump.

In Conna, Co Cork, Aidan Brennan visited this impressive calf housing unit where efficient nutrition and attention to health are key.

This year saw Jaguar enter the SUV market with the F-Pace model. Motoring editor Michael Moroney took it for a test drive on treacherous mountain terrain.

Finally, we leave you with a safety message to watch over and over again: never underestimate the danger associated with slurry.

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