Most Irish farmyards have some type of tractor front loader or dedicated articulated loader for handling silage, cleaning out sheds and various jobs around the farm. They’re indispensable such is their usefulness and range of applications. Depending on the task, yard size and shed height, some farmers prefer a more compact loader or even a skid-steer loader. These have come a long way in recent years, with more comfortable cabs and easy-to-use controls almost standard across the industry. Long gone are the days of floor operated controls. Alistair Chambers visits two farmers who use these on a daily basis for a wide range of tasks from pushing in silage to cows to feeding silage with a 6ft Tanco shear-grab.

In our motoring pages, Alistair Chambers drives the Renault Captur, which has been given a facelift, and found the bestselling small SUV in Ireland last year surprisingly interesting to drive and live with. In our vintage pages, we visit a Ford County still in use to this day by a forestry contractor in Tipperary.