Neil Brennan, Co Tyrone

“I do a bit of farming at home – sucklers and beef. We all know what the weather was like this year, it was a battle against the climate but we had to battle on and do our best through it.

“Hopefully next year is a bit of an improvement. It’s our first year in 20 years [coming to the Ploughing], the weather brings you out. We left at about five o’clock just to see the diggers and the plant machinery.”

Glenn Ryder, Co Longford

“We got up at quarter past five – we beat the traffic. [We come] just for the day out, it’s two years since we were here. We’re milking cows at home. The year was OK, not much grass but we’re getting there. You won’t find the winter coming in in another few weeks but there’s lots of silage in the pit. The pits are full so we are very happy that way.”

Stewart and Sam Cassels, Co Kildare

“We’re only up the road, we were here Tuesday as well and we’ve come back for more. We came back to look at the ploughing today, we didn’t see any on Tuesday. We’re tillage farming and we’ve about 40 or 50 cattle as well. It wasn’t a great harvest – a character-building experience I think is you’d call it.”

Martin Duggan, Co Laois

“I’m dairy farming at home. I came today just for a look. When the weather is good you might as well go. It’s been a tough year, especially after last year. We’ve no rain. It’s hard to get the grass to grow. We’re feeding silage at the moment, we’re lowly stocked so we’re not too bad but still I don’t think the growth is going to come now. If we had a nice spring it wouldn’t be too bad – try get the cows out early because silage stocks are getting a bit lower.”

Tom Ahern, Co Cork

“It’s been tough going this year so far [in west Cork]. I’d be hoping next year will be better. The last two years were shocking, I mean shocking. We’re actually sore after the year and a half. Working for nothing.

“The retirement scheme, I’m a long way off retirement but if they mention 55 and upwards, I’ll take it. Not a hope I’d be encouraging young people to get into farming.

“Bandon are paying us 49c/l now. They could have paid us that in March when the conditions were shocking.”

Gerry Fox, Co Tipperary

“I’ve only a couple of acres, that’s all. It’s tough with the price of everything. There’s a lot of restrictions around spreading slurry and farmyard manure. If the weather breaks around the slurry spreading date, it takes good days to get it spread. The [time period] for cutting hedges is very restrictive too. I know the birds would be hatching and that, so what can you do, you have to work around that too.”