In this week’s machinery section we look at the way that the farmers and contractors of Ireland rolled their sleeves up and got on with the job of clearing snow and helping rural communities to get on with their lives. From loading shovels at the airport to a classic Renault ploughing the roads, every sort of machine was out clearing the white stuff. We spent a morning with a snow ploughing outfit in Kildare which kept hundreds of kilometres of main and local roads passable during the worst of the storm. In motoring, Alistair Chambers tried the latest medium SUV from BMW, the X3.