The Times We Lived In – Ladies who lunch in the short grass

It’s a mad idea, when you think about it: ploughing as extreme sport. Then again, the skills it demands – a healthy understanding of soil and its mysterious habits, plus an ability to manage machinery as mercurial as the weather – are those which Irish farmers possess in abundance. Add in a large helping of inter-county rivalry, and you have a sport tailor-made for rural Ireland.

The National Ploughing Championships were dreamed up when two canny farmers, JJ Bergin from Athy and Denis Allen from Gorey, put a single question to the nation. Who's got the best ploughmen? Kildare or Wexford?

It wasn’t long before the two counties squared up to each other on the plains of Kildare in 1931. Our photo, also taken at Athy, Co Kildare, a quarter of a century later, shows Mr Thomas McDonnell of Louth competing in the senior tractor class. As he concentrates on creating his well-skimmed sods, another man walks along behind – either he’s judging their roundness and firmness, or he has dropped his watch into the furrow.

A healthy number of spectators create another strong horizontal line across the centre of the image, softened by a lacy embroidery of tall trees.

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But it’s the figures in the foreground who steal the show. Seated on a handy agricultural implement are two ladies who are, I’d be willing to bet, lunching. The woman on the left – dressed in practical wellies and a smart crochet beanie which, more than likely, she whipped up herself – is digging in a plastic bag, perhaps to extract a sambo.

These are tough people. Note the winter coats: the championships used to take place in freezing February, though this particular day was, apparently, “summer-like”. One way or another, the 300,000-odd people who attend “the ploughing” at Screggan, Tullamore, Co Offaly, next month, will have a balmier time of it. And comfier seating arrangements.

Arminta Wallace

These and other 'Irish Times' images can be purchased from: irishtimes.com/photosales. A book, 'The Times We Lived In', with more than 100 photographs and commentary by Arminta Wallace, published by Irish Times Books, is available from irishtimes.com and from bookshops, priced at €19.99.