Alan Cox was 18 and had just got his licence to drive a tractor when he first competed in the National Ploughing Championships, but his association with ploughing goes back further than that.

“My father John Cox set up the Offaly Ploughing Association. He was also a ploughman and a judge for many years. I had been going with him since I was a child and couldn’t wait to plough on my own,” he recalls.

“This year I am competing on the Wednesday in the senior conventional ploughing class with a Kverneland two-furrow match plough. I will also be judging on the Tuesday and the Thursday.

“Judges are put into groups of three from different counties and sometimes there will be an outside judge from the UK or Northern Ireland. The judges don’t find out what class they will be judging until the morning of the event,” he explains.

“I only got involved in coaching by chance really when a neighbour asked me to help him out, and I have coached others since. It’s great to help the young people out and get them started. I have coached them from Offaly and Westmeath – I don’t pass any remarks on country rivalry!”

“This year I hope to do well and to be proud of the work I have done when I get to the end, that’s all I can really ask for. Every year you compete you learn something new, the ground conditions are different everywhere you plough,” he says.

But Alan does have winning form.

“I have won three All-Irelands so far – the U28, the junior and the intermediate, but the dream is to get into the test match which is where if you plough well on the Wednesday you plough again the next day. Maybe some day I will win the senior class,” the Tullamore man muses.

He won’t be found wanting for practice this week. “Offaly Ploughing hold two matches the weekend just before the national ploughing and it’s a great chance to practise,” he says. “I hope to plough a bit on my neighbour’s farm as well.”

Practice days are an opportunity to fine-tune both ploughman and equipment. “If something went wrong at the weekend then you would be in the workshop modifying it or changing it,” says Alan.

“You always see something that you should be doing better or make something a bit different but you are always changing bits on the plough, even on the day,” he says.

“The day before the ploughing your tractor will be dropped into the assembly yard, and you can go and see where the plot that you will be ploughing is as well.

Rivalry

“Then the morning of the ploughing you get the diesel and lunch pack and head out to the field to get ready to go. If I am not competing, I am either coaching or I am judging the other competitors.

“Going to the matches each year, everyone is like a family, although there is rivalry between counties but it’s also friendly. If you do something wrong, someone will offer advice to change that or to do this and they could be competing against you at the same time,” Cox explains.

“If something goes wrong then people would often come to you for a helping hand or even a spare wheel of a plough to keep the show on the road.”

The 2023 event will be a landmark year for the Cox family in other ways.

“This year my mother is retiring, she has spent her whole life making the lunch packs for the ploughers and helping out for the few days,” he explains.