Eoin Hand Won the Under Forty Horse Plough Class as Seventy Seven Thousand Attended Day One of Ireland's Ploughing
Organisers counted 77,000 visitors on the opening day in County Offaly, where more than 350 competitors are contesting 34 classes over three days.
Eoin Hand of Monaghan won the Under 40 Horse Plough Class on 15 September 2026, the opening day of the 95th National Ploughing Championships at Screggan, near Tullamore in County Offaly. The National Ploughing Association said attendance reached 77,000 on day one.
Hand scored 86 points to finish ahead of Jeremiah Delaney of Cork East on 81 and Kerry's Jonathon Trant on 78, according to the official results, in a class with eight entrants. Elsewhere on Tuesday, Wexford's DJ Donnelly won the Under 21 Conventional Senior class with 243 points and Carlow's John Murphy took the Intermediate Conventional class with 244.
More than 350 competitors are contesting 34 ploughing classes across 180 acres. The Five Nations Challenge, featuring ploughmen and women from the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, runs on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a Six Nations vintage test, adding the Isle of Man, on Thursday.
The wider programme includes traditional loy digging, a tug-of-war and a welly throwing contest, now in its 13th year, which has raised more than €50,000 for charity and again supports SOSAD. President Catherine Connolly officially opened the championships at the Grandstand, and a battery-powered compact telehandler was named Machine of the Year.
The championships end on 17 September 2026. Former world champions Eamon Tracey of Carlow and John Whelan of Wexford were listed among the contenders defending the conventional and reversible titles they won at the same venue last year.