Ploughing into a new hobby

A sod turning marks a new beginning - no truer statement for one Arva man who found his passion in ploughing seven years ago.

Liam Dolan was gearing up for the National Ploughing Championships in Laois from September 17-19 when The Anglo-Celt called to see his 1951 Farmall Cub. He started out with loy digging which he did for five years before steering towards vintage machinery.

“I got a couple of thirds and a couple of seconds in the All-Ireland on the loy,” he says modestly. “Then I purchased this little tractor that I’m working on now.”

On a beautiful September evening, the Dolan home was surrounded by green hills and glorious sunshine.

Liam takes out his real pride and joy, a red vintage tractor with a plough on the back, and pulls it into the field to demonstrate a perfectly ploughed row.

“They would have taken over from the horses big time years ago,” he explains, adding that “it’s nice to carry on a tradition which sometimes you think is dying.

“Then you see a lock of new people getting into it and you think, it’ll go another while.

“You’d always like to be encouraging the next generation into doing it.”

This is Liam’s first year competing in the National Ploughing Championships on his vintage tractor.

“It’s a single furrow class that I’m in.

“You’re only ploughing with a single plough,” he explains, pointing out that the weights keep the plough firmly in the ground.

“When you’ve dry ground you need extra weight, then you have a wheel to adjust what height you want.

“You need to be fit to adjust at every angle when you’re on the move.

“It needs to be instinct as you’re travelling along - that you instinctively know when you see something going wrong - ‘I need to move that.’”

Already this year, the father of one has competed in 15 competitions all over Ireland and is happy with his performance so far.

“I’ve won a number of county matches and got seconds and thirds and different things. It’s all just gaining a bit of experience.”

Liam began his ploughing journey through his brother Michael, who had been doing it for the last 15 years. He competes in the two furrow mounted vintage class.

“I was helping him at it, so from there on I developed a liking for it.

“When I did the loy digging for a few years I said I’d have a go at this.”

The Brady’s Volkswagen Service Manager outlines how competitors are judged on various factors- from row straightness to depth, among other grades.

“You’re given 10 marks and 15 marks on about eight different grades of judging.”

The ploughing enthusiast said there would be a lot of friendly competition on the day, all “hoping to get to the All-Ireland”.

“There’s a great following with it and there’s great camaraderie with the rest of the plough men. You’d know most of them already from being around the country at different matches.

“Everyone would be out to help each other out,” he states.

Originally from a dairy background but having switched to sucklers in recent years, Liam says the only way to practice ploughing is by taking part in competitions.

“The more you can get in, it always stands. The more practice you do the higher up the table you’ll work.”

The Cavan man did point out ploughing competitors from down south do have an advantage when it comes to the sport.

“Obviously the southern counties where it’s all tillage ground and they’ve loads of fields to practice on, they always seem to come out on top.

“They have a bit of an advantage on us because we can’t just go out and drop a plough and plough up a grass field.

“That’s the luck of the draw, where you are,” he added, laughing that “certain fields” in the area “would be fond of the stones.”

On the morning of the National Ploughing Championships, Liam will load his Intervational Harvester built tractor weighing around 800kg into his Volkswagen Crafter van and head for Ratheniska in Co Laois.

“It’s that small and narrow compared to your conventional tractor, I’ll be loading it up inside that van and closing the doors. I’ve ramps there and I’ll just put them up and drive it up and into it and I can head wherever.

“On a Sunday morning, it gets you out on the road and you see a bit of the country.

“After a busy week at work it’s nice to get away. It’s nice to get out and do something different.”