Agricultral shows.

July and August in Ireland means agricultural shows, most of the towns hold these shows often combined with music festivals, a ceilidh, street entertainment and a family fun day. Our local one is held over the August Bank holiday weekend, which was this weekend, unfortunately the family fun day which was yesterday was cancelled due to wet weather ( well this is Ireland) but today was hot and sunny, just right for an agricultural show.
It is many years since I have taken part in this type of show, in fact well over forty years, but urged on by our local Sein Fein councillor we decided we would enter some of the classes, as he rightly said, if people don't support these shows they could not afford to put them on and it is a community thing. Each class that you enter costs three euros, first prize is twelve euros, second prize is six euro, it does make it worthwhile to enter, this is on the Home Produce and Craft section. We did not enter any of our poultry as we are always worried about disease from other birds, neither did we enter any of the egg sections,( some washed eggs here, a definite no no) we were curious to see what the standard was like, the same went for individual vegetable categories,

Our onions which we should have entered, plus this years garlic.

              but next year we will be entering onions, rhubarb, and potatoes.

As is was we did well, four firsts, and two seconds. The veg basket that came first had a beautiful cauliflower and some very nice lettuce in it, we don't grow summer cauliflowers neither do we grow lettuce, but we still got second so we were pleased.

Good enough to eat.

We also got second for our herbs which were Sage, Bay and Rosemary, probably the herbs I use the most, we were beaten by Chervil, Parsley and Thyme.

Both our Gooseberry and raspberry jams got a first,

                             as did my flower arrangement

My entry got me a first.

which surprised me as there was a lovey round bowl of roses which I had thought would have won, I think it only got a third.

We also got a first in the photographic landscape which was in fact a seascape.
We were very disappointed to see that there were no entries for the junior  baking class, (under eighteen) maybe the young really don't cook anymore.
It was interesting but overall the standard was not as good as you would see in the UK shows where competition is fierce, unlike the shows in the UK there is no section for Runner beans, French Beans, Cucumber Marrow or Courgettes, it also confirmed what we had long suspected, not too many people grow their own veg, or if they do they don't enter them into shows.
There was a pets section put on by a local pet farm for the children,

the star of this being a Barn Owl who spent all the time asleep, well it was the middle of the night for her

and three Barn owlets, just three weeks old, they are so beautiful in their ugliness, yet in just another three weeks they will be as lovely as their parents.
The whole show was very well attended so the organisers should be able to hold it again next year, last year it was cancelled due to lack of funds.
A very enjoyable day and the sun shone.