After an 8 hour flight, Brad, Tommy, David, and I all arrived in Ireland safely.  we spent our first day on Friday, June 10, primarily getting over the change in time.  Yesterday, we went to the 1916 Farm Life and Culture Event being hosted by Teagasc at the Athenry Research Farm.  The event had proximately 50,000 people to celebrate 100 year anniversary of their independence!!  Participants where able to see what life was like at that time with everything from plowing with horses to school house.

We was even able to find some good Virginia technology at the event!! Look familiar?

We also were able to learn about a few things that we never heard of!!  A loy is basically a spade with a wedge to plow by hand.  The wedge does most of the work.  In Ireland, small farmers didn’t have horses they could use to plow their field.   They would use the loy.  They would basically roll the turf over and create a furrow to plant their potatoes in.  In Ireland, they hold competitions for using the Loy.  Brad and I were able to gain insight on this from John Bolling who was 2013 Champion!!

That evening we spent our time in Galway looking at shops and architecture of the city.