REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE NATIONAL PLOUGHING CHAMPIONSHIPS BALLACOLLA CO LAOIS
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE NATIONAL PLOUGHING CHAMPIONSHIPS BALLACOLLA CO LAOIS TUESDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2000
Is onóir dom bheith i bhur measc inniú ag an ócaid seo. Tá mé buioch díbh as an cuireadh a thug sibh dom.
I am delighted to be here in Laois, in Ballacolla to open this year’s Ploughing Championships. I would like to thank that very special lady Anna May McHugh for the kind invitation and the Lalor and Talbot families for hosting this terrific millennium event.
Under Anna May’s leadership the National Ploughing Championships has become the great annual business and social feature of the calendar of farming activities. But it doesn’t happen by accident. Planning these championships, ensuring they are exciting, safe and enjoyable, is down to the dedication of the National Ploughing Association, the host families and their neighbours. It takes a great team effort and that is what you have here a great team which deserves our thanks.
We gather now at the end of this harvest, the first harvest of a new century and new millennium. We gather in gratitude for our farming community and all that it contributes to Irish life. We gather to celebrate the work of the men, women and children who through their daily lives, renew and refresh this country’s traditional affinity with the land.
Ireland’s relationship with the land is changing and swiftly, just as life generally in our country is altering out of all recognition.
Most of us who have been city dwellers all our lives have only to reach back one or two generations to find our rural roots but our own family stories tell the story of Irish farming. My own father was raised on a small farm in Roscommon. He and all his siblings emigrated. Today none of them is involved in farming and that story has been repeated in family after family, its impact felt heavily in our farming communities. They have coped with the mass exodus of young people from the land, the phenomenal changes in technology, in environmental and food sciences, the demands and discipline of membership of the European Union and the growing sophistication and diversification of the farming profession.
And you know that in the new millennium the pace is unlikely to slow down. Precisely because agriculture remains not just our largest industry but a crucial part of our national identity and way of life, it is imperative that our farming community faces the future with confidence, determination and enthusiasm.
The National Ploughing Association plays a crucial role in fuelling that confidence by ensuring that we keep pace with new developments. This event is an important pathway to the future and each year the number of exhibits continue to grow. The vast range of activities and interests included in this year’s programme is very impressive, from business planning and financial services to livestock and machinery exhibitions. There are exhibitors from the public and private sector who are on hand to advise and inform and I look forward to visiting the exhibits shortly.
The highlight of this occasion is of course the ploughing competition. It is a marvellous showcase of farming skills and pride in farming as a profession. The 300 competitors who have fought their way through the preliminary events to be here will be competing for the honour of becoming national champions. I wish each of them the very best of luck and I am sure those who will go on to represent Ireland in next year’s World Ploughing Championships in Denmark will be first-rate ambassadors for our country and for the farming community.
The organisers and hosts have worked hard to make these days as memorable and special as possible. Those of you who are here as visitors have earned these few days off the hard way. You have put in a busy summer and harvest-time, so these are very precious hours of recreation. I hope you enjoy them to the full, in the company of old friends and new. I hope too that in all you see and hear at Ballacolla will give you hope and faith in the future of farming and that you will go home committed anew to this great vocation.
It is my great pleasure to declare this, the millennium ploughing championship officially open.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go leir.