PLOUGHCHAMPS TWOINGREDIENTS FORAGOODDAY
PLOUGHCHAMPS TWOINGREDIENTS FORAGOODDAY
SATISFACTION from a job done well and a chance to chat with fellow competitors. Two essential ingredients for an enjoyable days competition ploughing, according to champion ploughman, Pat Brandon.
It started modestly enough, as a schoolboy, ploughing for a neighbouring farmer. Now, Pat Brandon, a native of Co Laois, is on the world-stage of competition ploughing.
This year, he should have competed in the National Ploughing Championships at Ballacolla having represented Ireland – along with Co Corks Charlie Bateman and reserve Eammon Treacey from Co Carlow – for the first time in the world event held in Denmark a few weeks earlier.
To compete against the top ploughmen in the world is a fair achievement, so how did it all start?
"When I was still at school, I started doing a bit of ploughing for the farmer next door. It was he who started me off. I had a great feeling for it, taking pride in straightness and neatness, and a few of the local people said then that I should take up competition ploughing."
At a time when hurling and Gaelic football, as well as fishing and shooting took up most of his spare time, Pat Brandon decided that ploughing as a hobby would have to wait. Eventually, though, the lure of the plough and a straight furrow proved enticing.
To do anything as a hobby you have to enjoy it, and match ploughing is no different.
"Meeting people is a big aspect of it, a few pints and a bit of craic after the ploughing certainly adds to the enjoyment," he says. "A lot of it is also about winning – but not all of it. Doing a respectable job that youre happy with is sometimes enough."
There is a great spirit in the sport, he adds, with people prepared to help one another and learn from each other.
Many titles
As a regular competitor in local, County and National competitions, Pat Brandon typically clocks up 15-20 matches a year and has numerous county and all-Ireland titles to his name.
But although he acknowledges that a match ploughed plot bears little resemblance to a commercially ploughed field, there is a still some relevance to modern farming and cultivation methods.
"Good ploughing is essential in farming, for weed control and a proper seed bed," says Pat Brandon. "Competition ploughing demands high standards that can be reflected to some extent in commercial work."
While accepting commercially, the reversible plough is now the universal tool, he is disappointed that the old one-way conventional plough is losing its popularity in match ploughing.
"There is a lot of skill involved in using a reversible plough," he acknowledges. "But it is not the same, even from a spectators point of view, as competing with the conventional item. Ploughing with a conventional plough is an art in itself."
Whichever style of plough is used, the principal challenge remains the same – adapting to soils that behave differently from match site to match site.
"The soils are different wherever you go, and being able to adapt to that soil is both the problem and the challenge," says Mr Brandon.
So does that mean he indulges in regular practice, to keep his ploughing skills honed to perfection? Not exactly.
"Its something I have a bit of a problem with," he admits. "Its not that I dont like practising, its just that I find it hard to get tuned in. At a ploughing match, there is more of an edge to it. I travel to a lot of events and thats my practising."
Match model
Pat Brandons present plough is a Kverneland match model which he bought about ten years ago. Numerous modifications have been made, even though he reckons to keep things fairly basic and simple.
"I think the more strange attachments you have and the more you have to think about, the harder it is to plough right," he says.
Even so, the disc adjusters fabricated in his workshop are quite a piece of engineering; they allow for the height and the lateral position of the discs to be adjusted with two threaded mechanisms. Newest modifications include disc coulters with no external hub and a mounting bracket which allows the skimmers to be adjusted in height and distance from the disc.
Mods to his Ford 4610 are mostly to the hydraulics, although the tractor does run on wheels that allow quick track width adjustment.
A hydraulic top link and a hydraulic ram on the left-hand lift arm makes it easier to keep the plough square when starting and finishing a furrow. A four bank valve chest, which Pat Brandon fitted and plumbed himself, is used to control all the hydraulic functions, including raising and lowering the plough.
Despite the cancellation of this years national championships, Pat Brandon is metaphorically looking over his shoulder for future challengers to his position on the match ploughing stage. One such could be his son, Padraig.
He is following in his fathers foot steps by competing in – and winning – the local youth ploughing match for the last three years.
"As well as a couple of open competitions," adds Dad proudly. A chip off the old sod, it seems. *