YOU may find this week that the lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea as usual, but to see a plough man homeward plod his weary way, you will have to go to Carlow. All ploughpersons, and many more besides, will be at the Oakpark Research Centre where not one but two ploughing competitions are in progress.
The National and World Ploughing Championships are always sure to draw the crowds and those with an image to promote see the occasion as ideal on which to make an exhibition of themselves.
Attenders with an interest in matters meteorological might do worse than visit stand 226 where Met Eireann does precisely that, and where a wide variety of weather gadgetry is on display.
There you will see a working weather radar system which shows the locks of the approaching storm in brilliant multicolour; you will also see an automated system for observing weather that feeds instantaneous values of the local pressure, temperature, wind and other elements into a computer for display upon a screen; and, perhaps most interestingly, you will see a slide show compiled to celebrate Met Eireann's diamond jubilee this year.
The Irish Meteorological Service was established in 1936 in response to the need of transatlantic aviation for accurate and timely weather information. Aviation was to dominate the activities of the new organisation for a quarter of a century, but after the second World War, or the Emergency as we like to call it here, the service broadened its agenda.
In 1948, for the first time, it assumed responsibility for the weather forecasts broadcast by Radio Eireann which had theretofore been provided by the British authorities from London. In 1952, it began to supply weather forecasts to the daily newspapers and, by 1961, the Meteorological Service was able to co operate with RTE in the presentation of the weather on television.
In the middle of the 1970s, meteorology in Ireland might be said to have come of age by entering the computer era. Initially, the new machines were employed for communications purposes and soon afterwards began to be used for the new technique of numerical weather prediction.
Last March in its 60th year of operation, the Meteorological Service transformed itself into Met Eireann and continues to make weather forecasts, statistical information on our climate and specialist meteorological advice available to the media, to industrial and commercial concerns and to a wide variety of clients in the public and private sectors.