The President, Mrs McAleese, confessed yesterday she had never seen her grandmother sitting down, "except to pluck a chicken". That is the kind of thing you could only hear at the National Ploughing Championships.
When she officially opened the 68th National Ploughing Championships in Ferns in near ideal conditions, the President was continuing a tradition dating back to the 1930s. After that she was involved in the launch of a new Award Scheme for Farm Women sponsored by the Bank of Ireland and the Irish Farmers' Journal.
The President recalled how her grandfather had opposed the installation of the electric light and running water in the farmhouse. Her grandmother was the one who had to fetch water from the well a quarter of a mile away. But, she said, attitudes toward women working in traditional areas were changing, and now farm women contributed 27.5 per cent of the total input of work into Irish farms.
It seemed, however, that a lot of Irish farm women had taken the day off yesterday to be in Ferns.
There were more than 50,000 people here, despite the downturn in the fortunes of the farming community, which is suffering from falling prices, fodder shortages and bad lamb and pig prices.
Even the weather was kind to them yesterday, and the expected rain held off, so it was still comfortable to move around the site without getting wet feet.
The traffic flow, too, was better than usual, and that contributed to the feel-good factor at the championships, where millions of pounds worth of machinery, cars and other goods are on display at 800 trade stands.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, moved among the people and was quite well received despite the fact that times are quite hard. He was loudly applauded when he played a few pucks of hurling with Kilkenny star, D.J. Carey.
John Bruton was there, too. His youngest star, Simon Coveney, who is seeking his late father's seat in Cork, had a friendly exchange with the Taoiseach.
And, of course, there was ploughing. When Martin Kehoe won the Kverneland World Class Challenge, it was remarked that there would only have been a story had he not won the major event of the day, dominating Irish ploughing as he does.
Today the Irish ploughwomen do battle in the Farmerette competition. They will, of course, be sitting down. Perhaps the President should come back to see really productive sit-down work.