Its 5am on a Tuesday morning in mid-September. The autumn dawn still hasn’t lit the sky. In the darkness, the phone screen lights up but it doesn’t wake Anna Marie McHugh. She is lying there, eyes wide open, with a knot in her stomach, a mixture of nervousness and worry.

Day one of the National Ploughing Championships is kicking off, another year where rural Ireland comes together at the biggest outdoor exhibition in Europe. And running the show once again is the powerful mother-daughter partnership of Anna May and Anna Marie McHugh.

“I’m not joking, it’s around that time every year that I think: ‘Why do I do this to myself?’” says Anna Marie. The thing is though, she never knew much different.

“These days, I’m starting to think more about my childhood and growing up within the Ploughing community because my son Saran recently turned eight. I remember Mam was always at home when we came home from school and Dad would be on the farm but when it was coming up to Ploughing time, we weren’t exactly sure who would be collecting us. It could be anyone from the Ploughing,” she laughs.

Ploughing family

Anna Marie is just off the phone from her husband Declan Buttle, asking him to collect Saran from school and saying it’s important for him to have stability.

“But you know, I’m not that worried. Growing up, I genuinely thought some of the Ploughing men were our family; uncles or cousins or what have you. I can honestly say that if I had a puncture anywhere in the country, I would know someone close by that I could call. There is something really special about the ploughing community.”

With Anna Marie’s position as general secretary of the World Ploughing Association, the ploughing community has gotten even bigger in recent years but so has the workload. Just back from the World Championships in Germany, it doesn’t get much busier than this month and while things certainly calm down in October, she says there is no real lull time in the NPA calendar.

Year in review

“From October to December, we are reviewing this year’s event. Until Christmas the event seems a very long way away but once the first week of January hits, suddenly its coming at you.”

Its foot to the floor from then on in but once August hits, things escalate to another level.

“The Rose of Tralee is a marker for me. I always say we will see bits of the Rose, but you’ll be looking at it from the office. At that stage, we are in the thick of it, pulling the really long days.”

NPA HQ

Interestingly though, these long nights aren’t on site. They are back at NPA HQ at home in Athy, and that’s where Anna Marie and Anna May stay right up until the weekend before opening.

This interview takes place two weeks before Ploughing and she says: “We are in shutdown mode now. It’s phone calls and emails 24/7 from here on in, but that doesn’t mean we need to be on site. We have the best of the best working there and we have to let our people kick into gear, respect their jobs and what they do. Our site manager will be constantly sending us pictures and videos and if he really needs us, we will hop in the car, but to be honest, we know the crew have it in hand and we place our trust in them.”

Ploughing pressure

So back to that 5am wakeup call.

“Oh, I swear, I will literally have a pain in my stomach and I’d be lucky if I got a few hours’ sleep. Sick with worry is the only way to describe it. Worry about people’s safety, worry about the weather and then traffic, all in that order.

“Our first crew gets into position around 4.30am and the phone calls and texts will start to come in shortly after that. Then I’ll be driving in really early and even if I see two cars in a row, I’ll be panicking that there is a traffic jam.”

It’s all systems go and although there is a schedule in place, especially on the days that the President or Taoiseach are visiting, a lot of your day is troubleshooting problems. The guys are great though, they will field the problems and only relay things that are escalating. Otherwise, it would be information overload.”

When the rain falls though, well that takes things to another level.

“Everybody has worked so hard for days, weeks, months in advance. Everything will be ready to go, there won’t be a stone left unturned but if the rain falls, it really does have a massive impact on the visitor’s enjoyment, for the exhibitors, for everyone really.

“I will never forget the rain last year. We were hosting a lovely lunch with Macra on the Wednesday and when it started coming down, it was so hard, I thought it was going to go through the roof. They called it the ‘Million Dollar Shower’ because that’s how much it nearly cost. But you know the community of Offaly were fantastic and have been over the past few years.

“On that Wednesday night, people pulled out all the stops. Guys with vacuum tankers just showed up at the gates, didn’t ring ahead or anything, just arrived saying: “I know you’re in trouble, I’m here to help.” People in Tullamore saying: ‘Do you need to use my yard? I’ll leave the gate on the latch if you need it.’ It was so generous – a real community willing to help.”

The highs are high

“It’s that kind of thing, those times that make it all worthwhile,” says Anna Marie quietly, “they make those 5am stomach aches disappear. For example, I love the opening ceremony; standing there in a field with hundreds of people while the Willoughby Brothers belt out Ireland’s Call. You get goose bumps and I think: ‘How lucky am I to be part of something so special?’

There is also always a moment at some stage during the Ploughing where I’m walking down the trackway and people are saying: “Fair play, that is fabulous, another great year, we love being here.’ And I always say to myself: “This is rural Ireland, and it’s for rural Ireland. Every media person, every head of ag is here and for one week, rural Ireland is on stage. People are thanking us for that and it makes you massively proud.

“Another part of the Ploughing that I love is, if the event is all happening as it should, I go down to the livestock around dusk. I just watch the cattle nibbling away on a bale of hay, totally oblivious to the madness around them, and that is always my time to reflect and take stock.”

People power

And then in a blink of an eye, after all the hard work, it’s over. “And I find myself in a pub in Tullamore with our closest crew, the people who live and breathe the Ploughing. The last of the cars are making their way back home and you just exhale and think: ‘We did it, we survived another Ploughing. It might have been by the skin of our teeth but we survived,” she says laughing. “And we are hugging each other and giving each other pats on the back, and the sense of team work and achievement, well it’s very special. It’s addictive – the highs and lows. It’s why the stomach ache is always worth it.”

In the past, there used be the presentation of awards for the Ploughing on the Thursday but it is now moved to two weeks after the event.

“We had to,” says Anna Marie laughing. “We were all so tired, you couldn’t hear the announcements over the snoring. You know some people say the event has gotten so big that it’s no longer about the Ploughing. I’m telling you for the people involved, there is nothing more important and that comes across at the reception dinner. There are about 600 people but it feels like family. There is no media, no exhibitors, it’s just the Ploughing community. It’s all: ‘Well another year done, how did you enjoy it? Who won? Who didn’t win?’ It’s that fusion of people – the plough men, the exhibitors, our own team and the volunteers – that coming together of people, that’s the real success of the Ploughing.”