On Sunday August 14, all roads lead to Moynalty in Co Meath for the 36th Annual Steam Threshing Festival. Gates are open from 10am and the show continues from 12 noon until 6pm. Admission is €10 for adults and children under 12 are free. There is also acres of free parking on site.
The festival is a celebration of days gone by, of horse and steam power, vintage displays, crafts, music and dance, trading stalls, sideshows, face painting, dog show, funfair and tractor build.
Country living of bygone years is uniquely presented and re-enacted in a series of demonstrations and displays. The Museum houses a vast display of antiquities. Corn grinding using quern stones is shown by Willie O’Brien. Exhibitors of vintage tractors, steam engines, cars, horse-drawn machinery and stationary engines travel from all over the country.
In the cornfield six acres of barley will be harvested by horse drawn reaper and binder and the sheaves stooked and brought to the mills in the festival field for threshing. Here the exhibition of threshing by steam engines, horse, flail and tractor is the centrepiece of the afternoon.
Centre field is the dancing deck where on stage this year is Dessie Hynes accompanied by traditional Irish musicians. There is a waterwheel on the river and a replica-thatched cottage on the hill, butter churning, woodturning, pottery, basketry, blacksmithing and spinning. Mud turf is run on the bank.
On the hobs, bread baking, pancakes, boxty and colcannon are cooked (Irish style ) with samples for eating and buying. Delicious roast pig can be sampled later. Refreshments are served in the tearooms beside the Museum.
Children love the collection of farm animals, poultry, and piglets and the thrilling fairground with bumping cars, swing boats and roundabouts.
Moynalty is 7km from Kells, Co Meath on the Bailieboro Road.
The entire event is run by voluntary community effort.
In sunshine or shower a spectacular show is forecast.
