Annual vintage day planned for Girley on Sunday

One of Ireland's largest working vintage events takes place in Girley on Sunday where the annual harvest festival promises to be a great family day out. The ninth annual festival will kick off at noon on Sunday 23rd August at Girley, which is located just off the Kells-Athboy Road. The organising committee is hoping that the dismal weather of recent weeks will be replaced by sunshine and attract record crowds to the event. The event is a full working festival which has increased in popularity each year as a result of a very dedicated committee. The festival was established to focus on exhibition and working of agricultural machines, old and new. It is an action-packed show and events include combining, steam threshing, reaping and binding, baling, ploughing and more. What is remarkable about the Girley Harvest Festival is the amount of separate activities that are crammed into a 38-acre exhibition site. This is a working event where exhibitors are actively encouraged to come and work their machines, and not simply exhibit parked machinery. At any one time, there can be up to 30 machines in operation. One of the great attractions this year will be the working 1950s Minneapolis Moline hay baler, and there will be plenty of combining, threshing, reaping, baling and ploughing on show. There wil also be horse and donkey tilling, vintage displays, cattle judging, tractor keg pushing, a 'guess the weight' competition, sheaf-tossing, tug-of-war, a donkey derby, pig racing, a dog show, baby show and penalty shoot-out. Various stalls will be set up in the exhibition area as well as live music and there will be a fantastic funfair to keep the crowds entertained. For the children, there will be a bucking rodeo bull and an obstacle course in addition to the funfair. A raffle will take place that afternoon with a first prize of €1,000. Second prize is a €350 holiday voucher (or cash) and third prize is two All-Ireland tickets. In 2006, the committee decided to set a huge challenge for the day, to break a world record and have all vintage combines working in the field at the same time. Many locals organised 63 pre-1970 combines to attempt the world record in Girley on 27th August 2006 and this great task was achieved. The event is always a great afternoon and attracts crowds from far and wide to see the machinary displays and the various sideshows and attractions. A website with further details can be viewed at www.girleyharvestfestival.com