A REMARKABLE thing happened at the first day of the ploughing apart from the nice dry weather and the sight of young folk lying around on the grass and live demos of things like "sustainable suckling", writes KATHY SHERIDAN
There was a man in the Fianna Fáil tent who wasn’t just there for the tea. He was thinking about signing up as a member. “I think I will . . . You couldn’t desert them now”, said James Leigh, an ex-Army man, becoming more emboldened by the minute.
This was especially portentous given an earlier conversation with a concerned farmer who fancied he could see the party dying before his eyes right here in Athy. “Sinn Féin’s tent dwarfs Fianna Fáil’s – plus the Shinners are givin’ away biros”.
Plus free copies of the 1916 Proclamation and An Phoblacht, complete with a special wraparound cover for the ploughing, featuring a full-page portrait of a beaming, twinkly-eyed Martin (McGuinness) – “The People’s President”. By lunchtime, nearly 1,000 Proclamations had been snapped up, said Mick O’Brien, Sinn Féin’s south Leinster organiser. “I’ve seen a huge change from even four years ago when people used to come as far as the door. Now they’re not afraid of coming in . . .”
Well it is an inviting tent, with chairs and genteel white tablecloths and lots of browsing material among the pictures of Bobby Sands, tricoloured clenched fists superimposed with the number 32 and crossed rifles on Dublin jerseys.
As if that wasn’t enough, Sinn Féin had already got the jump on the others on the road to Athy. McGuinness arrived with a police escort, having hitched a lift with the North’s Minister for Agriculture, Michelle O’Neill, and thus saving himself the miserable 40-minute traffic jam.
Plus the road is paved with posters, mostly featuring himself, against a gentle, soft green background. He wore a brand new pair of wellies – green, naturally – without a speck of dirt on them. That’s no mean feat at the ploughing.
President Mary McAleese had barely finished her nostalgic, valedictory speech – her 14th at the ploughing – when he was out of there, “like a fella dodging a bullet” or “like a rabbit out of a burrow” depending on who was commenting.
He has an astonishing turn of speed. Pausing occasionally for photograph requests, including one for a Defence Forces band member in a camouflage jacket and orange kilt. McGuinness clearly had pressing business elsewhere. Papers to lodge in Dublin, said an aide. An opposition sceptic tapped his nose: “Limiting the exposure – that’s what that’s all about.” Maybe, maybe not. Most people looked again as he passed, some approached. There was no abuse.
Generally, the ploughing is an excellent opportunity to go mano a mano with politicians. Anyone with a grudge or a bouquet can walk right up and deliver it. No-one who was there in 2007 will easily forget the spectacle of a tight-mouthed Bertie barrelling through a frenzied, protective mob, unafraid to wield an elbow if the media got too close. Yesterday featured no such scenes.
Gay Mitchell still isn’t looking as relaxed as he might but that eerily immaculate appearance, with dazzling shoes and ferociously controlled hair showed signs of liberation in the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association tent. The shoes were distinctly dusty and the hair a little less fearsome.
The battle for the most convincing familial links to farming was mildly entertaining. Some McGuinness antecedents farmed in Inishowen, by all accounts. Gay spent a few years working for a “farming organisation” as he called it (it was the IFA, but he could hardly blow that trumpet in the rival ICMSA tent) and his cousin is involved in a cattle breeders’ association.
Mary Davis, who went some way towards compensating for a very late arrival by turning up in a bright pink coat and pitching some boots in the welly-throwing competition – sponsored by Portwest outdoor clothing and all in aid of St Vincent de Paul – played up her rural links by saying the whole affair reminded her “of a big, big, big, huge version of a fair day in Co Mayo”.
Her welly-throwing effort was impressive. Not so the hapless lad from St Peter’s College in Wexford who managed to hit a woman on the back of the neck, to the unbridled joy of his many schoolmates.
Michael D visited the Munster Rugby store tent, had his picture taken with the Magner’s League trophy and conveyed some warm words to store manager Denis Hurley about Munster being responsible for making rugby popular with the ordinary man and woman.
Meanwhile, the usual extraordinary assortment of participants at the ploughing made for often startling bedfellows. The serene, welcoming occupants of the highly ecumenical Dublin Catholic Archdiocese/Church of Ireland/Methodist tent where young lads were indulging in a little light bell-ringing, tried valiantly not to flinch at the sharp cracks coming from the shooting gallery (25 shots for a fiver) right beside them. Exhibitors intent on getting the “yoof” in used the tried and tested method of blasting ear-killing music across the sound systems.
It works apparently. Macra na Feirme has increased its membership by 20 per cent in three years and Glanbia could hardly keep up with young ones queuing looking for smoothies and yoghurts – and they even had to pay for them, unlike the hordes getting free cereal samples from Flahavans. But the queues can also materialise without the ear-killing music. Bafflingly huge queues snaked towards the Farmers Journal tent for the free hi-vis vests. But probably the longest queues – requiring no fewer than three men in crowd control – were at the O’Neill’s marquee.
The sports clothing company was having its first punt at the ploughing, offering big discounts on clearance lines of football jerseys and hoodies. A mother confided that she was hoping to get school tracksuit bottoms for her daughter. As the daughter virtually wilted away with the embarrassment, a happy O’Neill’s man said the outlet had clocked up 1,000 sales by lunchtime.
And we never even got near the ploughing. That’s for today.