The traffic and the weather: if you were to draw up a diagram of a successful National Ploughing Championships, surely they would make up two significant circles. And both played ball last week in Screggan. Naturally, they also made for good conversation during my interview with Anna Marie McHugh, assistant managing director of the NPA, as the event drew to a close last Thursday.

Speaking at the Irish Farmers Journal stand for a special recording of our This is Country Living podcast, Anna Marie lifted the lid on what goes on behind the scenes to make the event a success – and it makes for sleepless nights.

“I was awake at 1am,” she says, referring to the night before the event kicked off last Tuesday.

And what time did she go to bed? “About 11.30pm,” she replied, such is the adrenaline and worry that keeps her awake.

Given the good weather, she got a bit more sleep than previous years, but if the rain arrives, people are pulling all-nighters. That same site in Screggan saw very different conditions in 2017. Reflecting, she says: “We had to get the slurry tankers in to suck water out. That was the year before the storm. People kind of forgot about that.

There is an ownership around Ploughing. It’s a national voluntary organisation, it’s not owned, it’s part of all of us. And because of that, people want to get it right, they want to showcase the best of rural Ireland

“The deluge can come, and when it does, there is nothing you can do [to prevent it]. That’s heartbreaking.”

But this year is a positive story.

“It’s lovely when you can showcase the event that you want to be able to showcase,” Anna Marie explained. “You want exhibitors to come and promote their product or service without thinking, ‘Is my tent going to fall down?... Will I be able to get out of the car park?’” The other thing she highlighted was “the number of buggies and people with special needs in wheelchairs”.

“We do say the event is accessible. It is to a degree, but we’re in a field.”

While Anna Marie and her mother, Anna May McHugh, are the ones most people associate with the event, she stresses it’s a community effort.

“There is an ownership around Ploughing,” she explains. “It’s a national voluntary organisation, it’s not owned, it’s part of all of us. And because of that, people want to get it right, they want to showcase the best of rural Ireland.”

In the podcast, Anna Marie talks about her dual roles – she is also general secretary of the World Ploughing Championships – and the demands that both bring. Emotionally, she reflects on the long trips away when her son Saran was very young. But it’s also a family affair, and 16-year-old Saran now has a real grá for ploughing, just like his All-Ireland champion dad, Declan Buttle.

But how does it really unfold, working with her mother, Anna May, we asked?

Laughing, she said: “If we’re going hammer and tongs, you do step back. Because we do debate, we tease it out between us. But at the same time, the one opinion I want is ultimately Anna May’s and the one opinion she ultimately wants is mine.”

To follow on from that, we’re delighted to announce that Anna May McHugh will be our keynote speaker at our Women & Agriculture conference. It was 1973 when Anna May got the job as managing director of the Ploughing, and in that time she has led the way for women in the industry. What a way to celebrate the International Year of the Woman Farmer.