THOUSANDS OF people have converged on Athy, Co Kildare, for the 80th National Ploughing Championships which will be formally opened at noon today by President Mary McAleese.
Championship organisers have confirmed all hotel and guesthouse accommodation, within a 30km radius of the site at Cardenton, has been booked for the event. More than 200,000 are expected to attend over the next three days.
The special traffic plan drawn up by the Garda, which worked well last year, has been put in place again and traffic will be diverted to special regional car parks at the 700-acre site.
“There was less traffic in the town during the championships last year than for the rest of the year. We are very happy with it,” said Tommy Moore, a resident who said the people of the town were very happy to host the event again.
“A lot of people in the area are keeping lodgers over the next three days and it’s a great way of meeting people.
“The ploughing crowd are the salt of the earth,” he added as he surveyed the main street.
A bemused coachload of French tourists was attempting to find out what was going on and asked whether there was some kind of manifestation(demonstration) taking place in the area where they had found themselves en route to Waterford.
It was rather difficult to explain to a group of Parisian retirees that thousands of Irish people were coming to a ploughing match in the early autumn and there would be lots of craic.
“You are strange people but like fun,” said André, a heavily bearded member of the party who said that as a retired metal worker from the French capital, he just could not get his head around the idea of a ploughing festival.
While the core of the championships will be the ploughing competitions, most attention will be focused on more than 1,000 commercial stands where millions of euros worth of goods have gone on display.
More than 300 ploughmen and women will take part in the ploughing competitions with particular focus on the World Championship Ploughing Challenge.
The winner of the senior Irish competition will represent Ireland at various international events over the next year.
Because of the presidential election, the site will become a political cockpit over the next few days as many declared candidates, including Sinn Féin’s nominee Martin McGuinness, will be on the site.
One of the candidates, Mary Davis, has her own stand at the event and she will be bringing a strong team of workers to canvass the huge crowds expected here.
Michael D Higgins of the Labour Party, which once again does not have an official stand at the championships, will attend this morning and Seán Gallagher is due in the afternoon.
Fine Gael’s Gay Mitchell is expected to spend most of his time at his party’s stand.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny will attend on Thursday and Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has pledged to spent at least two days on site.
Special bus and train links to the site from Athy, Portarlington, Co Offaly and Kildare stations have been arranged to the site where gates open at 9am today.