TIPPERARY STORIES: The judging, the hoult and the craic!

Whatever happened to the Macra na Feirme field evenings?

The rural Irish field evening for many years was an institution largely untouched by the passage of time.

This I discovered when I travelled along to one organised by Portroe Macra na Feirme in Tipperary some years ago.

I was accompanied by two members of Moyne/TempletuohyMacra, Michael Maher and William Kennedy, who were to guide me.
Field evenings were part of life in rural Ireland since the time of Charles J. Kickham’s adventures in the Homes of Tipperary, and, indeed, probably before that.

But when Macra na Feirme was founded in 1944, the field evening became established as an institution, and between June and September, in county Tipperary alone, some 35 Macra clubs used to hold their annual field evening.

The format of the field evening was simply that teams of four from some 50-80 clubs from around the county converged on the farm of a host club for team tests and sideshows.

The side-shows were for the general public and included such events as lighting a candle test to see how many candles one could light with one match in 60 seconds.

Would you believe that in Portroe that 105 candles were lit by Gerry McKeogh, Newport!

This was a great attraction in Portroe, a club only five years in existence at the time. Other sideshows included squats, press-ups for keep- fit enthusiasts (becoming more plentiful in rural Ireland); guess the age of the calf, the weight of a bullock or bale of straw, identifying seeds; fastest at hammering a nail in a block of wood; sheaf- throwing( a hardy perennial!); pop music quiz, hen- judging.

The list is endless! Team tests were for up-to-date young farmers or farmerettes who vied with colleagues for the team prize- sometimes a trip abroad.

In Portroe, Mr William Kennedy from Moyne told me that stock judging is one of the tougher team tests.

“If the subject of judging is a dairy cow,” said William.

“Then you have to judge not only is she a good milker but also a good survivor who will not stagger out of the dairy after milking!”

Usually three cows of equal quality were laid on to really confuse contestants! But nobody really took the evening too seriously.

Even the term field evening was something of a misnomer for teams sometimes did not arrive in a farmyard until after 11pm, and the tests and sideshows could go on until 1am.

After tea we adjourned to the local ballroom of romance for a couple of hours of country and western dancing. But let’s not get finicky.

“Would you like to judge the hens?" asked one pretty girl.

“No”, I replied, adding that my knowledge of hens was confined to what I occasionally had for breakfast.

It was plain I would be of little help to the Moyne/ Templetouhy team members, Michael Maher and William Kennedy!

The barn was lit- up like it was morning, and for a couple of hours we watched farmers reversing tractors and trying desperately to avoid the obstacles- barrels, in this instance.

The ladies were getting down in earnest to home- management quizzes, and were also hoping their queen cake entries in the cookery tests would be successful.

Each team included a lady who brought along a sponge cake or dozen of queencakes to the evening.

After judging, they become the property of the host club.What a Macra club did with 50 cakes, I cannot imagine.

After sandwiches and lashings of tea we were in rare form to take to the maple boards of the local Portroe Hall, where a group of musicians dressed in Mexican apparel (yes, it was a band called The Mexicans) had us waltzing and rocking until around 2am, when secretary, Mary Dunne, announced the results to wild cheers, presumably from the winners of the various team tests and sideshows.

And so after a chitter and chatter and after the odd boy met the odd girl for the odd “hoult”(as they called it in Portroe), we left the north Tipperary village and headed home.

Somewhere outside Thurles, we met a team who had been to a field evening in south Tipperary, swapped notes and continued our journey.

William Kennedy and Michael Maher said they had to rise at 6am to milk cows. I hope the alarm clock worked!