Although the official opening was not until 12 noon, by 11 o’clock there was already a sizeable contingent of exhibits, trade stalls and other attractions.  The arrival of the vintage cars particularly would continue until past 3 o’clock, depending on how far they had travelled, and some of them had come a very long way indeed.  We do not yet award a prize for the farthest travelled vehicle, but if we had the winner would surely have been the 1955 Citroen traction avant, whose owner had driven from England with his family on a fortnight’s holiday. There were other classic cars from Limerick, and stationary engines from Wicklow, and a great many exhibits from Northern Ireland.  This being our seventh annual event, this relatively young Club has developed the show into an attraction for enthusiasts from all over the country, as well as outside of it, which means an increasing number and diversity of machinery for our visitors to view.

The trade stallholders were also an interesting crowd, with all sorts of unusual foodstuffs and items on offer.  Connaught Alternative Technology had a display of practical sustainable energy devices for our homes, thus ensuring that oil will still be around in the future for us to run our old machines on.  At least one television and several radios kept tabs on the progress of the County’s other great achievement on that day, the Connaught Final!