Crafts marquee at Longford Agricultural Show always a great attraction

The Crafts marquee at the Longford Agricultural Show is always a great attraction and Sunday promises to be no different as a wide range of activities will feature, from cookery to photography to patchwork.

Olive Quinn is one of the joint craft secretaries of the Longford Show (alongside Cynthia Geelan) and she gave the ‘Longford Leader’ a taster of what Show patrons can expect.

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“At this stage, we’re up on entries on the 2024 Show which is brilliant,” she enthused.

Olive continued, “We’ve introduced two new children’s classes and handwriting for children, and they’re very well entered with the kids under 7 and 12s. We have the cookery section, for children and adults. You have the country crafts for adults. We have photography, farm produce and flowers, honey, jams.”

Olive works alongside Cynthia Geelan, who she credits with getting her involved in the show. “Cynthia Geelan is the main person in the crafts section. I got involved to help her around eight years ago.”

She explained, “We’ve just changed around some of our classes, but we wouldn’t have anything major changed from last year. You go year-on-year on with what’s the most popular. If there was a class with not many entries, we may shelve them for something else. There’s something for the kids, as that’s the future of the show.”

She gave specific examples of what the children can expect. “There’s a little poem that’s on the entry form or the schedule. We had a little poem about friendship. Their job is to write it out in their handwriting. When they’re writing it out, they’ll be reading and taking it in. Friendship is important to children. They write it at home and bring it in on the day.”

The craft section has grown significantly and this year, there will be well over 100 exhibitors, with up to 600 exhibits on show approximately.

Olive highlighted that some of the winners at Longford Show will progress to All-Ireland competitions.

“There’s a cookery competition and the Odlums All-Ireland. There’s an All-Ireland qualifier for that. We’ve three entries this year. One of them will go on in the final in Tullamore. We also have a potato qualifier, and we have the photography one, which would’ve been new for us.”

Members of Longford ICA Federation, of which Olive is a member, also play an integral role in the success of the Show crafts marquee.

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Olive commented, “The ICA runs the cafe on the day, and they also run the hospitality tent, where the judges and stewards go for tea and coffee. Their main thing is the cafe. Members give their names. We’ve formed a roto of different names throughout the day. Members are asked to bake for goodies on the day; tea, coffee and sandwiches. The cafe is on the field. It’s proving very successful.”