A sore head for Ram-bo after a hard night on the town

THEY were calling him Ram-bo down on the muddy exhibition site at the ploughing championships in Carlow yesterday but they should…

THEY were calling him Ram-bo down on the muddy exhibition site at the ploughing championships in Carlow yesterday but they should not have been laughing at him at all.

Ram-bo, a pure bred Simmental bullock, had only been copying what they were all doing since Wednesday - going into town after the ploughing for a bit of craic.

Ram-bo and a few of his friends also decided to go into town but he lost the head when he got to the centre of the town with all the other rural beings.

According to the Garda, at around 11 p.m. poor Ram-bo saw his reflection in the big glass window of Dooley's Garage and charged himself. The glass held up but Ram-bo went down, again and again and again until he and his pals were rounded up by the forces of law and order and detained in the convent grounds overnight.

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Ram-bo was a celebrity nursing a self inflicted sore head yesterday - like a lot of other folk who have arrived here for the event.

And not all the talk around here is of ploughing. The All Ireland football and hurling competitions are being refought in the many tented bars on the site. Country people have perfected the art of slagging and it was at its best when a Mayo fan told a Meath supporter yesterday that the Meath men have a new football anthem: You'll Never Walk Again.

And twixt the plough and bars, a Limerick man was asking in the press room yesterday if we knew the difference between a Wonderbra and the beaten Limerick hurling team?

The Limerick team, it appears, has lots of support but no cup.

There was also a lot of speculation about a prize being offered by Fine Gael at its exhibition tent. The winner will get a night in Strasbourg with Alan Gillis, the Leinster MEP. Where else would you get it?

Or where else could you find green sheep. The green sheep are Shropshire sheep, specially bred to graze in forestry and are much sought after by Christmas tree growers who do not want to use fertilisers or pesticides.

It's wet and dirty down here but there is no damper on the action and a Dublin woman, Ms Lucy O'Higgins, of Navan Road, won the "most appropriately dressed woman award" from the Irish Farmers Journal.

With the water levels rising and no sign of any let up in the attendances, the wisest suggestion of all came yesterday when we were told we will be going to Birr next year.

There was an immediate suggestion that perhaps the National Ploughing Association should consider holding the event in the Burren.