I’m as active today as when I started
... and that’s an astonishing 71 years ago! But as Anna May McHugh gets ready to lead the national and world ploughing contests, she says this is one of her most important years yet
THIS week marks the return of the much-missed National Ploughing Championships, and with it comes the matriarch of ploughing herself, Anna May McHugh. It’s been seven-day weeks for the last couple of months, starting at 7am and often not finishing until after midnight, but if McHugh is feeling the effects of all these long hours organising Europe’s biggest agricultural event of the year, she’s certainly not showing it.
Although it might be a little rude to bring up anyone’s age, you can’t but marvel at how energetic and on top of things she sounds — it’s a tough gig regardless of how old you might be, but McHugh is now 88.
‘Ah now, don’t be too hard on me,’ she sighs, possibly a little exasperated at her advanced years being brought up yet again. ‘I feel that if I’m not able to do the work that I should be doing, then it will be time to go.
‘But I feel I’m as active today as when I started.’
She has a few thoughts on why she has remained so energetic.
‘I get very little sleep and I never sleep in on the weekends, I’m an early riser,’ she says. ‘I’m never in bed after 7.30am, never. I never smoked and I’m proud to say I still have my confirmation pledge [to not drink alcohol].
‘I was never tempted, but I can enjoy people when I’m out and I’d buy a drink for a person. I have no objection to alcohol, provided it doesn’t affect family life. That’s my motto.’
But ultimately, it seems the secret is not to stop.
‘I keep going,’ she says. ‘I’m looking forward to the ploughing, and I enjoy checking that everything is going well.’
For just over 70 years, McHugh has been at the heart of the national championships. She started as an assistant to the founder, JJ Bergin, who was a friend of her dad’s. Back in 1951, it was just the two of them, organising a one-day competition that pitted ploughers from across the country against each other to find the man who could drill the straightest and turn up the optimum amount of earth.
Bergin was considered something of a maverick in the agricultural world, a man with big ideas and aspirations, but it’s unlikely that even he could have predicted the behemoth the ploughing would become.
The very first contest was the result of a row Bergin, from Kildare, had with his good pal Denis Allen, a farmer from Wexford. Both insisted their home county had the best ploughmen in Ireland, so there was a challenge.
In February 1931, the best ploughers from Wexford and Kildare met at a 26-acre field in Athy, along with tillage farmers from seven other counties. Wexford was victorious. It was all good fun and quickly evolved into an annual affair with an aim ‘to bring the message of good ploughing to all parts of the country and to provide farmers with a pleasant, friendly and appropriate place to meet and do business’.
By the time McHugh joined in at the age of 17 in 1951, it was already a well-established competition being run by the National Ploughing Association (NPA), which in 1956 became a limited company. McHugh was appointed the secretary. Much to her shock, after the then NPA managing director Sean O’Farrell died suddenly, the board appointed McHugh as the new head of the association in 1973.
It was a wise, if unusual, decision at the time — there was no one who knew more about the job than McHugh.
The mother-of-two has, however, admitted in the past that it wasn’t always easy being a woman in such a male-dominated realm. From chatting to her, however, you can see that although polite and friendly, there is a steely, efficient, no-nonsense core.
The phenomenal success of the ploughing championships, estimated to be worth at least €50million to the Irish economy, speaks volumes about her capabilities.
About 300,000 people are expected to visit the site at Ratheniska in Co Laois next week — 100,000 visitors a day over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This year the national competition is running in conjunction with the World Ploughing Championships, which were supposed to be held back in August in St Petersburg.
Because of the war in Ukraine, it was decided to hold them elsewhere. ‘We had a Zoom meeting in March with the World Championships’ board of directors,’ McHugh explains. ‘I’d spoken to my executive committee beforehand, and they said; “look it, if it comes our way we’ll host it.”
‘The chairman of the world board asked if some other country would be interested in hosting the event. I waited for a few moments before I said anything and then I eventually said, “the Republic of Ireland will host it”. I must say, I got a great reception.
‘But I also knew it was going to be a huge, huge task for us — usually host countries start two years
‘Some taoisigh are more comfortable than others’
in advance. I phoned the national executive the next morning and I told them, “we have it now, whether we like it or not, so we better take our coats off and get running at it.”’
Despite the excitement, not to mention apprehension, at holding the World Championships here this year, McHugh took time to acknowledge the distress of her Russian colleagues.
‘They were at the Zoom meeting too,’ she says. ‘They spent well over two years organising it, so we felt very sorry for them when it was cancelled. They had no hand, act or part in what is going on over there. All of the members expressed their regret that we weren’t going to St Petersburg, which is supposed to be beautiful and we were looking forward to it. But it couldn’t happen.’
With 311 competitors taking part in the Irish competition, including McHugh’s own son DJ, there will also be representatives from 26 different countries from all over the globe taking part in the world championships.
‘Our own competitors are very excited about seeing the lads from Canada or New Zealand,’ says McHugh. ‘How they might be ploughing differently now.’
But as we know, the championship is much about much more than just ploughing these days. Thanks to McHugh and her team, it’s become a huge family affair with fashion shows, amusements, live music, all sorts of farming equipment on display, sheep shearing and cookery demonstrations, food villages and a motor show. ‘I don’t think anyone will go home and say there was nothing there to interest them,’ says McHugh.
It was a canny move, opening up the competition to become an agricultural trade show of sorts. There are few politicians who miss the chance to attend each year, a place where a couple of hundred thousand potential voters gather.
‘Oh yes, the politicians all come down to us,’ smiles McHugh. ‘In more recent times the media have come too. RTÉ is already here on the site. We’ve got the recognition now that we think we deserve.
‘All the Government departments will be here, they have their own village of tents, and all the political parties. I’ve met a lot of taoisigh over the years. Some are more comfortable down here than others, but we get all of them, especially when there’s a general election coming up. They’d almost be pushing you aside to get out into the crowds.
‘But you can’t blame them, they have a difficult life I think. Who would want to be a politician? If you don’t do it you’re wrong, and if you do do it, you’re criticised. It’s a tough old life really.’
One of her favourite moments each year is welcoming the President. ‘I’ve met President Higgins and his wife Sabina a fair few times now,’ she says. ‘They’re both very, very nice and he’s a wonderful ambassador for the country, a great speaker and a wonderful friend of the ploughing.
‘We had President McAleese before him and President Robinson — in fact, I can go back to meeting President Hillery. It’s lovely to have them there, it’s good for the country.’
This year there will be the added bonus of President Higgins unveiling the Cairn of Peace on Tuesday afternoon, a tradition that goes back to the very first World Ploughing Championships of 1952.
‘It’s a huge block of Kilkenny limestone, eight foot long and four foot high, which incorporates a block of marble from each of the participating countries,’ McHugh explains. ‘A board from a plough is also inserted into it, and on the
bottom, in Latin, it reads: “let peace cultivate the fields.” A message that’s more important now than ever. It’ll be delivered to the site, but afterwards it will be permanently erected somewhere close to the site, so that anyone passing by in years to come can visit it, it’ll be there forever, to mark the festival.’
This year’s event is not only extra special because it’s the first to happen since the pandemic, but also because it’s just a stone’s throw from McHugh’s own home in Co Laois.
‘I’m very proud we have the opportunity to host it in my home county,’ she says. ‘It’s only about four miles from where I am now. It’s lovely when you’re travelling over to Stradbally, which is the nearest town to the venue, you can see the lights twinkling across the fields at night-time. Something within you is really moved when you see those lights.
‘But there’s also the responsibility it brings, hoping that everyone will be safe and enjoying what we have put on.’
Luckily, McHugh has a dedicated team behind her to share the burden of that pressure, including her daughter Anna Marie, who began working fulltime for the NPA in 1997. She now helps her mother manage the competition and nine years ago, she scored the job of general secretary of the World Ploughing Association. Since then she has juggled both roles.
‘Of course there are times we have our disagreements,’ says McHugh about working with her daughter. ‘But we try and iron them out as best we can.’
‘You know she won the Queen of the Plough in 2008?’ she says proudly. ‘She’d plough again if she had the time, but she doesn’t this year unfortunately.’
It’s been three years since the championships were last held. Given how big a part they are of McHugh’s life, it must have been a huge loss to her personally?
‘Yes, it was, you were losing contact with so many people,’ she says. ‘So many people told me how much they were missing it as well. It’s all I’ve been hearing for the last month or so.
‘Our own office was dead, really, for all that length of time so it must have affected some of the smaller businesses greatly. Can they fully recover now? I always ask myself that.
‘Because while people are saying it’s great to be back, they’re also telling me it’s a big effort. In some cases, they just can’t get their product, that’s a major problem. I’d a boy here last week and he told me he’s been waiting for materials since February, he only got them last week and he’s got three people working on it now to be able to set up his stand in time for the ploughing. It’s tough.’
The fifth child of eight, McHugh grew up on her family’s farm in Co Laois. ‘I understand farming — we all helped from a very young age,’ she says. ‘Perhaps I’m not the best qualified to talk about the challenges farmers are facing today, but from what I can see, it’s the prices of the products.
‘Fertilizer was a huge price this year, diesel, everything is gone so high. That has to be matched with the produce from the farm. Dairy at present is good, but it’s not every farm that suits dairy. The tillage farmer gets hit with a lot of costs before they get anything back.’
She also understands the importance of a job like ploughing and why farmers like to compete against each other.
‘It’s a tremendous skill,’ she says. ‘The judges are looking at the straightness of the drill, the flesh, the amount of earth turned up, which means it will be good for a crop, that’s very important.
‘Were it not for the plough, there would be no food — it’s a long story that leads to everyone’s table.’
After seven decades of championships, she must have a part that she looks forward to most?
‘If I was to be truthful, it’s when the event is over and people are going away happy,’ she says. ‘I feel like there’s something lifted from my shoulders. No doubt we’ll have problems, but we’ll solve them.
‘There’s a sense of great relief when it’s all over, there’s no doubt about that. Safety is the top priority — with so much machinery moving about these days, that
‘Were it not for the plough, there would be no food’
nobody is hurt is hugely important. But of course, I love to see people enjoying themselves, and I’m looking forward to welcoming President Higgins and the unveiling ceremony.
‘There’s also meeting the competitors, particularly the ones from overseas. It’s a great renewal of friendship.’
What about the weather, does that occupy her thoughts?
‘Oh God, I never look at the forecast,’ she exclaims. ‘It’s good for this week anyway, which is a relief because a lot of heavy machinery is going in on site.
‘I do hope it’s good for the exhibitors. Enterprise Ireland is bringing in a number of people from overseas, prospective buyers. We did have to postpone it once for a day, because the weather was so bad, and that was a nightmare for everyone. But you get what you get, and you have to make the best of it. We’ll deal with whatever is thrown at us.’
With that, it’s time for McHugh to get back to work. There are over 2,400 temporary staff, volunteers, judges and stewards to organise. With over 70 years of experience, it’s sure to be a doddle for her.