The Muck Of The Irish

What would Father Murphy make of it all? In the shadow of the rebel priest’s beloved Vinegar Hill, there now stands a rosy cheeked youth, white knuckled and rigid of stance, displaying a towering voice that belies his tender years. Eyes closed and fit to burst, he soars to the passionate climax of ‘Boolavogue’. It’s somewhat disconcerting then to discover the proud owner of the Smithwick’s jaws and McCormack tonsils is sporting a Nirvana t-shirt and green wellington boots.

But this being the second day of the National Ploughing Championship ‘94, ‘green’ rules. There’s yer Albert-type-shiny-blue-double-breasted- and Green Wellies, yer elegant-Ascot-titfer- and Green Wellies, yer Garth-10-Galloner-and . . . Whoever was flogging the Kurt-’67-’94 shirts definitely smelt teen spirit. But the green rubbers and Kurt t-shirts pale into insignificance when compared to . . . The White Stick!

Landed gentry, cowboy mouthed ploughmen, sultry Spanish students, cider fuelled carnival boys, anyone who is anyone could be seen brandishing this one essential fashion accessory. At first glance, it seemed we had somehow blindly stumbled into the annual Helen Keller Convention. But no, the only blindness here was Arthur-induced. So what is the purpose of The White Stick?

“Give us a fag and I’ll tell yeh.” And this little chancer lit my last Carrolls Numero Uno (red of course), blows some smoke . . . Well? “It’s for batin cattle with.” What? That’s it? “Oh yeah, and it’s got a rubber handle, see, so’s you can test electric fences.”

Ah, of course, it’s your everyday electric-fence tester. And everybody bought one! So, white stickless, I wander into the beer tent. The place is flying. On stage the ballad singing Nirvana-head is followed by the yodelling farmer, the singing and dancing priest (a table full of them) and, then, the singing chef from Clare, who responds to the M.C.’s ecstatic introduction thus, “Ah don’t mind him, he’s only a bollox.”

SOWS OF THE FUTURE

The sun has got his hat on and I just can’t take another. ‘Fields Of Athenry’, so it’s off to look for the missing photographer and to check out the delights of the Mini Town. It’s vast. Anything can be obtained here from an automatic needle threader to a septic tank. On my travels, I pick up a copy of the Pig Times (I kid you not) wherein I discover that a SOW IDLE DAY WILL COST YOU APPROXIMATELY £1.80. I ponder on the Pig Times Crossword – one across, ten letters. Opposite to Liveweight? Shit. Hard ones first, hah?

I curse my rotten luck at having missed the Farmerette Class. I skip the fashion show, smug in the knowledge that it’s all dead rock star shirts, green boots and electric fence prodders. I stare in disbelief at the headline SOWS OF THE FUTURE while resisting a burning desire to purchase a silt remover. And then, wondering exactly what The Samaritans are doing here, I suddenly spy my missing photographer stranded a hundred and seventy feet above the ground, left for dead by an absent-minded crane driver. Not his day.

Meanwhile back at the beer tent the band is taking a break, the lousers, they’ve only been playing for seven or eight hours. And then the woman who owns the field takes to the stage, giving it her all and apologising for her hoarseness. I betcha Max Yasgurt never got up and belted out a few verses of ‘All Along The Watchtower’.

A handsome, red-haired lad has completely lost the guitarist while telling us of how he and his love walked away from the hanging tree. And while a big man from Carne is wearing corduroy britches, digging ditches and working on the “Rayalwayahh”, air-accordionist supreme gyrates in the form of a 70-year-old spastic Joe Cocker (I know, I know, Joe Cocker is 70).

And then the missing photographer arrives. Earthbound and back in his stride, he goes to work only to be rounded on by a rather large gentleman (you could park a JCB in the shadow of his arse) who fearing the loss of his dance steps in the stare of the deadly lens grabs hold of our hapless snapper with malicious intent. Back in the car, we beat a hasty retreat. Did I say hasty? There’s 20,000 cars here today. I know this to be true, 19,999 are in front of us. Slow? It’s like living in a Eric Rohmer film.

You know you’re in trouble when an 85-year-old carrying a Dunne’s plastic bag speeds by you – three times. Fifteen across, six letters. Another name for piglet? . . . Eight across, seven letters. A good . . . percentage at slaughter is vital? Crossword compiled by Pat McCabe?

THE QUEEN OF THE PLOUGH

Night-time. The Queen of the Plough Ceremony in White’s Hotel in Wexford. This is apparently the brainchild of one J.J. Bergin way back when. But “when” being 1954, the man was accused of introducing, “Hollywood razzmatazz at its worst.” In those days, the Queen was known as the Farmerette. Things have not changed greatly since then I’m afraid. The crowning took place on the stroke of midnight. The Queen was paraded about, photographed, talked about (at one point our M.C. declared of his queen, “I saw worse lookin’ women mind yeh.”) but amazingly she was never offered the opportunity to speak herself.

And then as ritual dictates, the Queen is whisked off her feet by the eminent politician John Brown and waltzed around the floor, turning and gliding, dancing away into the dawn of history.

2.15 am and a stage announcement reminds us that in six hours time it begins all over again. I decide that you can get too much of a good thing, so as the man from the Pig Times might say – the-uh, the-uh, the-uh, THAT’S ALL FOLKS!