There is one stand among all others that acts as a magnet for the thousands of secondary-school pupils who are descending on this year’s National Ploughing Championships.
TikTok’s two-storey pavilion seems a high-tech, incongruous addition amid the farm machinery and the food stands.
There are long queues to enter “Tigh TikTok” and the audience is overwhelmingly young. Inside there is a dazzling array of digital displays accompanied by a very loud soundtrack which makes it hard to hear oneself.
There are 2.4 million Irish account holders on TikTok – almost half the population. Whether you regard TikTok as a brilliant forum for creativity and self-expression or the end of civilisation as we know it, there is no escaping its relevance to young people.
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For the first time TikTok Shop was also present at the National Ploughing Championships. It allows users to sell their wares through the platform, which claims sales have surged since the start of the year.
TikTok’s popularity was evident by the reception accorded to one young online star, Eoin Lynch (18) from Mitchelstown, Co Cork. Lynch (eoin_lynch165) was a relatively unknown TikToker until he gave an interview to Agriland at last year’s championships in which he proclaimed he was a fan of slurry.
“I love the slurry gear. I think about slurry. I eat slurry, I dream about slurry. That’s my motto now.”
The video got 2.2 million views on the platform.
Lynch was born in Vietnam, but has been living in Ireland since he was six months old and has the broad rural Cork accent to match. He has attracted a slew of mostly young fans attracted to his brand of rural humour.
He’s parlayed his catchphrase “I love slurry” into T-shirts and badges, or “merch” as they say in social media circles.
He was much in demand at the TikTok stand, posing for selfies and chatting to young fans. One set of teenage girls brought along one of his branded “Slurry King” T-shirts for him to sign.
He’s enjoying the adulation. “It’s been savage. I’m not in it for the financial thing. I’m in it for the fun.”
There is the small matter of the Leaving Certificate this year first.
“We should get through it fine. We’ll keep the head straight down from January and we’ll plough straight through it,” he said.
He wants to study aircraft engineering when he leaves school or,failing that, get a job in Teagasc as an adviser.
Another prominent TikToker at the festival is Caolán Ward (@crayonward), who has a large following posting mostly Gaelic football skills on the platform. One video in which he tried to kick the ball over the bar from six different positions got hundreds of thousands of views.
Now 26, he’s a veritable elder statesman of the TikTok genre. He plays for Wolfe Tones GAA club in Meath. He was there to emphasise the importance of online safety, which is a big issue for young people.
“Increasingly I have been trying to make videos across the week for TikTok. The signs have been very positive.”
Presidential hopeful Heather Humphreys made a whistle-stop tour of the TikTok pavilion, posing with young fans and undertaking the online safety test which she, along with a pair of teenagers, won.
When Simon Harris was branded the “TikTok Taoiseach” for his level of social media activity, it was not meant as a compliment but, given the number of people on the platform, politicians are no longer ignoring it as just a forum for selfies and silly dancing.
