Ballacolla, Co Laois, will be the home of the National Ploughing Championships this year and again in 2001, it was announced at the weekend.
The championships, the largest ploughing event in the world and one of the largest outdoor agricultural events in Europe, will be held this year from September 26th to 28th inclusive, said the managing director of the National Ploughing Association, Mrs Anna May McHugh.
She said the farms of Mr David Lalor and Mr Robin Talbot, where the event will be held, were prime locations and offered a compact, level, dry site with an excellent road network.
The site is on the Abbeyleix-Rathdowney road, close to four national routes.
Facilities at the site in 1995, when the event was last staged there, were excellent and traffic delays were kept to a minimum because of the parking space.
Mrs McHugh said the association's policy was to identify prime sites and return to them frequently.
"In view of the size of the championships, which now re quire hundreds of acres of land and a very sophisticated infrastructure of roads, electricity and water, we are often asked if we will consider opting for a permanent site," she said.
"Let us say that finding a small number of prime sites will go some way towards meeting this option. It will still leave the important factor of variety, which is so much part of the event."
Mrs McHugh has always resisted the idea of a permanent site for the championships because of the high level of voluntary input. She has always claimed that no county ploughing association could continue to put in the necessary amount of work year after year.
Last year's event was held in Castletownroche, Co Cork.