National Ploughing Association
National Ploughing Championships 2024
#AldiPloughing
A hilarious cast of characters, created specially to be performed live each day by D’Unbelievable’s Jon Kenny.
Come along each day at 9am, 10am, 11am and 12pm and meet Tommy Bones Daly, Mikey Dan Long, Michael Lynch and Sidney O’Grady Hunter!
For further information contact: Joanne Byrne/Sinead Ryan Presence PR T: 087 2494668/086 8594226 sineadryan@presence.ie#AldiPloughing
The Aldi Marquee is set to steal the show at this year’s National Ploughing Championships at Ratheniska, Co Laois next week. The stunning exterior clad in a ‘living wall’ of herbs and flowers sets the tone for a beautifully designed space showcasing Aldi’s suppliers and the very best of Irish produce, with a few special guests too. Two large venues within the Aldi Marquee will feature entertainment by the D’Unbelievable’s hilarious Jon Kenny, Gaeltacht superstars Seo Linn, and the legendary Sharon Shannon, all with guest MC Síle Seoige.
The National Brown Bread Baking Competition will be hosted in the Aldi Marquee. Hotly contested, the huge number of entrants nationwide has now been whittled down to just 8, who will compete on Tuesday and Wednesday for a place in Thursday’s final. Representing their county and with the title of Ireland’s Best Brown Bread Baker up for grabs, this prestigious competition, sponsored by Aldi and in association with the National Ploughing Association and the Irish Countrywomen’s Association, is firmly back on the annual calendar and is sure to draw a crowd.
Visitors to the Aldi Marquee are in for a treat. Aldi has recreated a traditional Irish street, with a bakery, a fishmonger, a delicatessen, a butcher and more, each showcasing Aldi’s multi award-winning products proudly presented by the producers themselves. It’s an opportunity to ‘meet the makers’ of Aldi’s Irish products, hear the story behind them, and try them too.
At the top of the street, the bandstand area will be buzzing, with a traditional Ice Cream Van, a Coffee House and an open fronted kitchen, busy serving up samples of Aldi’s delicious hot food, from sausages in the morning, through to lunch time snacks and tea time treats. In the afternoon the bandstand itself will host a very special live performance with Seo Linn on Tuesday and Sharon Shannon on Wednesday.
An event as special as deciding Ireland’s best brown bread deserves its own venue, so just off the street there’s a separate area, specially created to host the live baking competition. It’s here, in the mornings, that you’ll find the comedic favourite, Jon Kenny, who has created a cast of characters especially for the event. Each morning, come along on the hour to delight in the live caricatures of a farmer, a hunter, a jockey and a hurler!
Technology is having a huge impact on all our lives, including animals and Miriam the cow is bringing her thoughts on the wonders of technology from a cow’s perspective to the Ploughing.
Over the past few weeks Miriam @MiriamTheCow has been busy tweeting about life on the farm. She’s seen how much technology is having a huge impact on the business of farming and digital and social media is revolutionizing how the farmer is staying informed with up-to-date news and events.
In a first, for this year’s National Ploughing Championship, @MiriamTheCow will be tweeting live to give us a perspective of how she and her friends view the three-day event.
With smartphone ownership growing and new technologies allowing farmers control their enterprises from the touch of a button, the business of farming is changing rapidly.
@MiriamTheCow – one of the Lely cows has been tweeting for the last few weeks and already has amassed in excess of 200 followers.
Named after Miriam O’Callaghan, (because the farmer felt if she looked as good after nine calves as Miriam looks after nine children she wouldn’t be doing so bad!) she has been keeping us up to date with what happens on an Irish farm and introduced us to Betsy, Daisy,
Buttercup and some of the other girls that she lives with on the farm.
The patented device which is called the Safehitch has been developed to address the frustrating issue of safely and quickly attaching an implement to a tractor on the lower 3 point linkage.
The inspiration for the innovation has come from a growing realisation that tractors and implements are getting bigger, farmers older and children are being exposed to greater forces than in days gone by . As one of their boys pointed out” In the 21 st century there must an easier way to do this “
The pre set nature of the safehitch allows the user to align the lower arms to any device prior to mounting the tractor and allows one person to easily initiate attachment of an implement unaided without dismounting from the vehicle.
While it is a labour saving device, they view it primarily as a safety feature in that they find that many older farmers are physically uncomfortable mounting and dismounting in order to set the lower arms, many farmers tend to resort to dragging implements into place opening up the risk of physical injury, while in many cases a second person often a child is called on to push the arms into place exposing themselves to the risk of being crushed when the tractor moves back.
In light of the number of injuries and fatalities in recent times on farms we feel Safehitch has an important role to play in limiting risk in this crucial area.
Please circulate this press release for me in the run up to Ploughing, I will have images and a short video in the next day or so and will send these on also. anything you can do will be much appreciated.