After three full days of glorious sunshine at the National Ploughing Championships last week in Carlow, heavy rain fell in Kilkenny at the weekend and brought with it a change in the air. Some around our office, including me, have the “Ploughing curse” – sniffles.

In the weeks leading up to Ploughing there are always the same conversations: “I can’t believe it’s next week”; “Here we go again”; “Are you looking forward to it?”; or for the old timers who have worked at many a Ploughing, “Are you dreading it?” And then it comes and goes and it all seems like a bit of a blur.

I have been to 12 Ploughings out of the last 13. There have been some great days and some very poor ones. Most of the poor ones were weather related, but the mood of Ploughing is the mood of the industry.

This year the atmosphere was mixed as the beef crisis loomed on and reared its head on a number of stands.

The three days painted our industry in a very positive light

But these are conversations that need to be had and the Ploughing presents an opportunity for people to engage with the media, farm organisations, politicians and regulators.

For the non-farming consumer audience that come to the Ploughing, a group increasing in numbers each year, there was an unrivalled opportunity to learn a little more about agriculture. And with the sun shining and the music blaring, the three days painted our industry in a very positive light.

For the last 11 years, we have had Neven’s cookery demonstrations on our Irish Farmers Journal stand, as well as livestock demonstrations. However, change presents new opportunities and the chance to highlight other content.

We were delighted to see our Country Living Lounge packed each afternoon for our new demonstrations

As the saying goes; “A change is as good as a rest.” I know that we had some disappointed readers who came to the stand to see Neven but rest assured, he will continue to be on the pages of Irish Country Living every week.

We were delighted to see our Country Living Lounge packed each afternoon for our new demonstrations.

We were treated to talks from contributors such as our makeup artist Dolly Buckley, as well as people we have featured in the paper previously such as beef farmer, milliner and former Queen of the Land Karen Elliffe.

I actually bought one of Karen’s crowns for the Galway races this year and although she is “beef first”, her side-line in millinery is sure to continue to grow as her pieces are fantastic. I almost came home with another one.

Recently, Mairead Lavery visited Altamont Gardens and we were delighted that Robert Miller from Altamont plant sales could join us to give some advice for your garden.

Robert Miller from Altamont Garden Centre giving a demo in the Country Living Lounge at the National Ploughing Championships 2019. \ Philip Doyle

Mairead, a keen gardener herself, will be writing a gardening page (page 19) once a month going forward and I am sure she will be going back to Robert for some hints and tips.

Irish Country Living was also never too far from the main stage. It can be difficult for us to know sometimes what our readers have a preference for in the paper which is why your feedback is so important. We are one of the only publications to dedicate column space to country music and the response and crowds that showed up for our Ploughing for Stars competition certainly showed a justification for those pages. Thank you to all our readers who came in to meet us and give us their feedback over the three days.

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