The organisers of the National Ploughing Championships are meeting this week to discuss whether this year’s event in Carlow can go ahead.
The event which is scheduled for a return to Ballintrane in mid-September remains in doubt because of the coronavirus crisis.
Record numbers of almost 300,000 people attended last year’s event, but social-distancing rules may affect the 2020 edition.
Anna-Marie McHugh, deputy managing director of the National Ploughing Association, says it is still possible it can happen but lots of things have to be considered:
“There’s obviously a possibility (of it going ahead), it’s just the factors of making the assessment to see what can work, what constraints the national ploughing can work within, whether its feasible to have the trade exhibition, and not to have the trade exhibition and have the ploughing only, also to look at the overall risk associated with the event going ahead, so there’s a lot of factors and our priority will be the health and safety of the irish public if the event goes ahead”.
