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 Clik Pour-On All Ireland and International Sheep Shearing Championships. County Tipperary and Thurles are expected to gain a significant lift in terms of Revenue spin-off, if an expected 10,000 or more visitors gather for the Clik Pour-On, All Ireland and International Sheep Shearing and Wool Handling Championships. The event just across the border in Kilkenny, is taking place over this coming June bank holiday weekend and will be held at the Cillín Hill exhibition centre, a 28-acre agribusiness development, owned and operated by Kilkenny Co-operative Livestock Market Ltd.
Details of the event, which will see competitors from all parts of Ireland, from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and mainland Europe, were confirmed yesterday in Kilkenny. The event will coincides with the long-established Cats Laugh Comedy Festival, in the city.
The National Sheep Breeders Association confirmed a number of its breed societies will host the All Ireland championships at the event and it is likely that the Young Sheep Farmer competition will also be staged.
The organisers predict the championships will be a massive revenue-spinner in tourism terms for the Southeast and surrounding counties. The two-day festival will also be a major showcase for Trade, with Craft and Food exhibitors being offered exhibition space at very affordable rates.
Mr Michael Nolan, chairman of the organising committee, said the focus would be on helping craft exhibitors and indigenous artisan producers, showcase their quality goods, without having to spend a fortune.
Irish Farmers’ Association president, Mr John Bryan said the championships would attract farmers from all over the country. He forecast: “Higher lamb prices and additional direct payments have helped restore huge confidence to the sheep sector and it is essential that strong lamb prices during 2010 are now continued into 2011.”
Earlier this week meat plants paid sheep farmers up to 600c/kg for the first of this years spring lambs.
This year’s International Miss Macra Festival will be held from Thursday July 28th to Monday 1st August 2011. The festival is organised annually by Clonoulty Rossmore Macra, and will once again be held in the magnificent surroundings of the Dundrum House Hotel and Golf Resort here in Co. Tipperary.
Irish Beauty Festivals or pageants, as tourist attraction or festival themes, have for the most part died the death throughout this country, but two such events continue to stand the test of time and continue to flourish, namely The Rose of Tralee and the International Miss Macra Festival.
The main reasons for the mammoth and continued success of these festivals, possibly lies in the fact that the emphasis is not just on physical beauty alone, latter which I hasten to add, is very prominent in both, but judging in the afore mentioned festivals places an accent more on internal beauty and true qualification, which always demands a closer examination of those ‘lovelies’ who choose to enter the competition.
For International Miss Macra, this year is a very special one, as the festival make plans to celebrate it’s 40th birthday. It has been 40 years of learning, 40 years of mixed financial fortunes and 40 years of dedicated voluntary hard work, undertaken by an enthusiastic and dedicated Macra membership.
As part of their 40 Years Celebration this year, Clonoulty Rossmore Macra are poised to send invitations to all past winners of the festival. They look forward to welcoming previous contestants and their supporters back to Tipperary, to relive what was surely a memorable weekend in their lives during those past 40 years.
With selection processes underway for this year’s representatives, the club intend to have contestants once again from the four corners of Ireland as well as from overseas.
Promises to be an exciting weekend.
 Irish Fuel Prices The word boycott is not a new word to any patriotic Irishman. Indeed it entered the English language during the Irish “Land War” and is derived from the name of Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott, the land agent of an absentee landlord, Lord Erne, who lived in Lough Mask House, in County Mayo, Ireland and who was subject to social ostracism organized by the Irish Land League in 1880.
Thurles.Info receive lots of suggestions each week from its ‘Netizens‘ with regards to matters in and around Tipperary which they feel we could or should be highlighting. One particular suggestion received to-day was regarding increasing vehicle fuel prices and suggests, with some merit, that we ‘boycott‘ major oil companies.
We are now almost hitting €1.45 a litre for unleaded petrol and €1.38 for Diesel. Soon, if we are to believe the “Informed Prophets of Doom,” we will be faced with paying € 1.50 plus per litre in the coming months. One of our many discerning readers (My thanks ML) has put forward, what I believe is a rather good idea.
This idea makes much more sense than the ‘Don’t buy petrol on a certain day campaign ‘ that got started in America and was going around last year. Oil companies just laughed, knowingly, because they knew we couldn’t continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol, and anyway it became more of an inconvenience to us the consumer, than it hurt the major Oil Companies.
However, whoever thought of this idea, has now come up with a plan that could really work.
Boycott And Give Unleaded Petrol Power To The people
Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us into believing that the cost of the present litre of fuel is cheap, (well compared to bottled water), we need to take aggressive action to teach oil companies that consumers and not wholesalers control the oil market. Then of course there is Facebook, Twitter etc, etc.,sure we could tell everyone in this green and pleasant land in an hour.
With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if we hit someone very hard in the pocket, by not purchasing their petrol product. Yes, we can do that without hurting ourselves and here is how.
1. For the rest of this year DON”T purchase ANY petrol from one of the biggest oil companies presently operating. We know who they are, so pick one, but do make sure we all pick the same one. Ouch!
2. If they are not selling any petrol, they will be encouraged to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. See it as real laissez-faire economics at work, but to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Irish petrol consumers to organise.
So how do you reach these consumers you now ask? Well it’s really so simple in this modern communications era.
Now, don’t switch off on me at this point… keep reading and I’ll explain how simple it is to reach those millions of people!
Thurles.Info are sending this information out to between 700 and 1000 daily readers. If all of these readers ‘Email This Post‘, by ordinary mail or using the Tag shown at the end of this post, to at least ten more people (700 x 10 = 7,000)….and those 7,000 send it to at least ten other people (7000 x 10 = 70,000) … and so on… now do you get my drift? Then of course there is Facebook, Twitter etc etc etc, sure the world and his mother would know in less than an hour.
Don’t know what you think of this idea, but oil companies are blackmailing us and between them and government taxes, essentials like motor fuel and motor vehicles are slowly being turned into luxury items, and very soon they will be only available to the very rich or NAMA clients.
Maybe we need to gain the support, influence and muscle of The Irish Farmers Association( IFA ) together with the Irish Road Haulage Association they could lead us in such a campaign, they would know better who and when to hit and I am sure that the low paid worker with the 2003 car, who is forced to drives ten miles, for his daily bread every morning, would be more than happy to give their full support.
Organise Brothers, Organise!
 Tipperary Farm Contractors Meeting Tipperary Farming Contractors have expressed grave concerns regarding new regulations governing the use of agricultural and works vehicles on public roads and feel that these new laws will seriously effect their future incomes.
Details of the Department of Transport and Road Safety Authority‘s new proposals are due to be announced later this week. Contractors understandably now express concerns that these new measures will exclude them from non-agricultural work contracts.
It is understood that a speed limit of just 40kph will be also be introduced for tractors on public roads, with the minimum age for tractor drivers to be increased, while permits will to be introduced for contractors who use farm vehicles that run on rebated fuel for non-agricultural work.
Tom Murphy, director of the Professional Agricultural Contractors (PAC) of Ireland claims:
“The proposed legislation will do serious damage to contractor incomes and the cost of permits, which would allow agricultural contractors to use farm machinery on non-agricultural jobs, such as construction, is likely to be prohibitive. Contractors will go to the wall because of this. There are very few contractors who survive exclusively on farm work. New speed limit will effectively ban tractors from motorways, while the cost of new permits could exclude many contractors from tendering for work with local councils.The proposals, as they are currently framed, deemed the transport of harvested willow as haulage rather than an element of the contractor’s core business. Consequently, contractors will need permits to run their vehicles on rebated fuel if they get involved in this activity.”
The PAC will hold a meeting this week on Thursday at 8pm in the Horse and Jockey, Thurles, Co Tipperary to advise contractors on these new proposed measures.
Farm contractors incomes have already been hit this past year, with the repossession and resale of farm and plant machinery by finance companies, having had serious consequences for established and registered agricultural contractors, with cheap tractors and machinery, bought at repossession sales, enabling new entrants to undercut established operators. Claims that new silage outfits have started up, as a result, which are not registered for tax and who are operating, charging significantly less as a consequence, would appear to be well founded.
 Green Dragon Innovation Challenge 2011 The Agri Aware Green Dragon Secondary Schools Innovation Challenge is back and set again to entice all our young innovators to develop original and ground breaking ideas. Students are encouraged to develop the concept of a new product or service within three sectors with huge potential for development, namely: food, agriculture and the environment.
Twenty five finalists will battle it out at the national final in March 2011 for the highly coveted prize of a development fund worth €8,000.
Agri Aware with the support of Bord Bia and AIB Bank are calling on second level students of all ages to look outside their classroom, identify a gap in one of these three sectors and apply what they have learned to the real world.
The challenge is open to all second level students. It doesn’t matter if you are a first or a sixth year, the submission will be judged on the merit of the idea and not your age.
Students nationwide will pitch their ideas to the Green Dragons with the hope of following in the footsteps of last year’s highly successful winner, Paul Bowden from Thurles CBS Co. Tipperary.
IFA President John Bryan commented, “The Green Dragon is an excellent way to get our young people thinking about the huge economic possibilities that lie within the agricultural, food and environmental sector.”
Interested pupils, teachers and parents should visit Here for more information.
Note: Due to the recent adverse weather conditions resulting in the closure of many schools, the closing date for registration to the Green Dragon Innovation Challenge is now Friday January 21st, 2011.
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