Castleisland vintage ploughing expert Aeneas Horan brought home a silver medal from the 2023 European Vintage Ploughing Championships in Veenhuizen, the Netherlands.
Held over September 7th and 8th the championship yielded yet another top placing for the honour laded Aeneas and the Horan family.
Aeneas and his brother Timmy now have at least a half dozen All-Ireland vintage ploughing titles between them.
Aeneas has won four Irish titles since 2008 while Timmy brought his Irish title from the Vintage Hydraulic Two Furrow Class with his 1957 Ferguson TVO tractor in Ferns, Co. Wexford in 1988.
Early Induction
The Horan brothers were inducted into the technical world of ploughing at an early age as their late father Neilie was involved locally. They remember walking out the Cordal Road from school in the late 1960s and watching a ploughing match in full flight on W.H. O’Connor’s land – where all the houses are now built.
After one of his recent wins Aeneas explained that while having your tractor and plough in prime order and tuned to the nearest millimeter is of the utmost importance, the furrows you leave behind must be just as immaculate if you’re hoping to land the top prize.
Adjudicators Like Hawks
“The adjudicators watch you like a hawk if you’re in the top two or three and if they think you’re a likely winner the scrutiny becomes even more intense,” he said.
“Even a half inch too wide, too narrow, too deep or not deep enough will see you relegated to the placings.
“I’ve seen them taking measuring tapes from their pockets at times to separate winners from runners-up,” said Aeneas.
Mistakes and Corrections Spotted
“If you veer off one quarter of an inch and you try to correct yourself they’ll spot the mistake and they’ll spot the correction – they’re that sharp with the markings,” said Timmy.
Aeneas won his European silver medal last week with the same vintage tractor, a 1941 Fordson with a trailer plough, which he has used to land all the other honours.
While Timmy is farming in the home place in Carhue, Aeneas is involved with very modern tractors in his role as a salesman with Buckley Agri Ltd at their Tanavalla base in Listowel.
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