As you get older, annual landmark events seem to come around more quickly don’t they? Christmas, Easter, the All-Ireland final, the Ploughing. I leave the National Ploughing Championships each time and think, “well that’s that for another year”, convincing myself that next year is a long way away. And then it seems like no time before it comes around again.

We will all head down to Screggan in a few weeks’ time and you won’t be able to open a newspaper, turn on the radio or switch on the television without being exposed to the Ploughing.

It’s as if some aspects of the media only think about farming for three days every September.

Ah that’s the cynic coming out of me, seeing that the rest of us in the agricultural media family stick with the issues of farming the other 362 days of the year – reporting on the positive stories as well as the negative ones.

Still, it is never any harm to remind the non-farming public, the consumers of farm produce, of the important role of farming in Ireland, whether they interpret that as a good thing or a bad thing.

This year will be my 20th Ploughing. It should be number 21 but as some of you will remember, the 2001 championships in Ballacolla, Co Laois, was cancelled due to foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).

Ireland was pretty much clear of the disease but the fear was that visitors and machinery coming from the UK, where it remained at a critical phase, might pose a risk

The height of FMD was much earlier that year but its legacy lived on for many months more.

When you think of the impact it had on the country, you often wonder would everybody row in today the way they did back then?

Coming together

For me, what epitomised the national pulling together was the late Minister for Agriculture Joe Walshe’s story about the bride ringing the Department’s helpline wondering if she should cancel her wedding the following day.

Anyway, the agri media was summoned to a press conference in Abbeyleix where Anna May McHugh was to officially announce the cancellation of the Ploughing, which was due to begin just seven days later. So everything was almost in place when the costly decision had to be made.

Ireland was pretty much clear of the disease but the fear was that visitors and machinery coming from the UK, where it remained at a critical phase, might pose a risk.

I interviewed Anna May, enjoyed a sandwich and a cup of soup and sat into my car to drive back to Donnybrook to file a report. It was around 1.45pm and I was heading back towards Portlaoise when I switched on Liveline. Joe Duffy was interviewing Irish Times reporter Conor O’Clery from his apartment in downtown New York.

There were reports that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Centre. My RTÉ colleague Ciaran Mullooly was driving behind me. I rang him and we agreed to pull into a pub where we watched events unfold on TV. We knew then that we didn’t need to rush back with our interviews with Anna May as events in New York developed.

Needless to say, our interviews never saw the light of day.

That was 11 September 2001, the day the Ploughing was called off.

Money you spend

I know it is always prudent to try and save money for a rainy day. We call it savings. But you can spend it if you wish. However, have you ever noticed that when a competition is advertised on TV which includes money as part of the prize, it is referred to as “spending money”.

Does that mean that there is such a thing as money which you can’t spend? It’s a bit like the way the Americans refer to glasses as “eye glasses”. Is that just in case you might try to hear with them?