At 2pm on Saturday afternoon, I was making my way into Newbridge town centre.

Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of tractors were making the same journey toward Minister for Agriculture Martin's Heydon's office at the same time, to protest at Larry Murrin's ongoing chairmanship of Bord Bia.

My brother lives in the town, so I parked at his house and wandered in on foot. It's less than two kilometres, the walk won't do me any harm, but you notice so much more detail than when you’re driving.

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Like so many sprawling commuter-belt towns, you come out of a housing estate, you're walking along a busy road and all of a sudden you see a stubble field across the way.

The scene outside of the Minister's office in Newbridge on Saturday. \ Philip Doyle

Behind that field was a further reminder of south Kildare’s dependence on farming. Diageo's brand-new brewery glistened in the late-February sunshine.

That’s the one that will focus on beer brands, allowing the James's Gate facility to devote itself fully to brewing Guinness again, as it was in the beginning.

Tillage is important around here, while the Curragh is up the road with sheep on the commons. Kildare’s plains also host cattle and dairy farms in abundance.

It’s a rich farming tapestry on mostly good land. Dublin may be on the doorstep, but farming matters around here.

I’m not sure if the people of Ukraine, Gaza or Iran would agree with Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) deputy president Alice Doyle when she said “this is war” at Tuesday night’s association meeting in Athy.

Protracted conflict

The issue of whether Larry Murrin vacates the chair of Bord Bia is hardly life-threatening, nor should it be.

That said, this is now a protracted conflict and one where both sides became entrenched in opposing positions from the start.

The IFA says Larry Murrin must go, has been saying it round the clock outside Bord Bia’s offices since January. March starts on Sunday, so the protest will move into its third calendar month at midnight.

And Martin Heydon still says he will not ask Larry Murrin to resign. And Larry Murrin shows no sign of resigning. So it is a war of wills and of words, I suppose.

There’s no doubt that Doyle’s words matched the mood of the meeting in Athy and I understand she made similar statements in Claremorris and Cavan at meetings that had the same fervour among the farmers attending.

Every now and then an issue emerges that is elevated way past its significance or meaning.

A classic example was the water charges. Of all the things the Irish people had to put up with during the economic downturn, from unemployment, mass emigration of young people, wrecked pensions, negative equity and the reduction in public service provision, it was paying for water that became the line-in-the-sand issue for the public.

Debate

The Larry Murrin issue is a little like that. The debate may have now broadened into a wider conversation around exactly what the quality assurance scheme asks of and delivers for farmers, what exactly Origin Green is and how it has come to be that, but those issues can be evolved and progressed over time.

That work goes on all the time through the technical advisory committees (TACs).

The single issue that so divides farmers and government is the one that IFA president Francie Gorman once more articulated standing in front of Martin Heydon’s constituency office on Saturday afternoon - Larry Murrin being the chair of Bord Bia while also being CEO of a company that imports beef and chicken from third countries.

“This is a ground-driven message from our members,” Gorman said. “I've had discussions with Minister Heydon on a couple of occasions since [Tuesday’s big meeting in Athy], again in the last 24 hours, and I'm hoping that we can kickstart discussions that will bring this to an end,” he said.

However, Gorman made it clear that the discussions must centre around Larry Murrin’s removal.

“Confidence in Bord Bia among us farmers will not be restored while the chairman stays in place and that has to be sorted by the Minister for Agriculture,” he said.

“That's why we're here today. He is the one man that has the power to be able to appoint a chairman or to unappoint a chairman.”

Gorman’s final words were unequivocal and directed toward Minister Heydon.

“He does need to step up to the plate, accept his responsibilities, understand the damage that this is doing to Bord Bia, the damage it will do to the industry and sort it out.”

No time for evaluation

Following Gorman’s speech, everyone walked a two-kilometre circuit around the town’s centre, with the tractorcade then following with 12 further laps of the same circuit.

It seemed from the roadside that the convoy was so looming it fully looped round that circuit, so tractors were passing one’s vantage point non-stop.

Francie Gorman addressing farmers at the protest. \ Philip Doyle

A drone photograph would be illuminating. Each kilometre travelled represented a day the five protesters in Bord Bia’s offices have spent in confinement.

The tractors going round in circles were also symbolic of the fact that after five weeks of protest, the issue has remained the same - unresolved.

And once the battle-lines have been drawn as clearly and unequivocally as in this case, there is no time to evaluate exactly how we have stumbled into the position we are in.

When this is finally resolved, we can look back at whether this conflict was inevitable, necessary or avoidable.

We all learned the causes of World War I in school and history has not judged that kindly, but it took some time for the dust to settle and clarity to emerge around that.

Francie Gorman explained the next steps to the protest. The IFA’s national officers committee meet on Sunday, with a Bord Bia board meeting taking place on Monday.

The IFA hopes that Larry Murrin will excuse himself from at least some of that meeting, to allow a fuller and perhaps franker discussion on his remaining in his role.

I couldn’t help notice that a circus tent was erected right behind Martin Heydon’s office.

Like the circus, this is dramatic, a political high-wire act, filled with tension and we don’t know how it will all end.

Between the IFA, Larry Murrin and Martin Heydon, who is the lion-tamer, who is the lion and who is the ringmaster? I’m damned if I know.