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De Courcey Classic and vintage club 2019

Jim O’Regan, John Quinn, John O’Neill and Martin Nyhan of the DeCourcey Club meet with Stephen Scrivner and Tom O’Connor of Farmhand to discuss Harvest Working Day 2019

Our first meeting of 2019 was held in Corcoran’s Bar Ballinadee on the evening of 25th February. The year ahead was discussed and a few events decided upon. March will see the running of our tillage day.  This event is not a public event but instead a day for members and friends of the club to get together for a bit of vintage tractor work and socialising. A number of St Patrick’s day parades will be taking place locally and the Club will participate in the parades of Bandon, Kinsale and Courtmacsherry.

Following the success of our May tractor and car run in 2018 we will once again be taking to the highways of West Cork on Monday 6th May .Vehicles will gather at the Church car park in Ballinspittle from  Mid-day and depart at 1 P.M. sharp. Cars and tractors will follow different routes.

Our main event in 2019 will be the Harvest Working day on the August Bank Holiday. This year the Holiday is on Monday 5th. A new location has been kindly offered by John O Donovan and family in Sandycove, Ballinspittle. The site is particularly picturesque overlooking the sea at Sandycove and well suited to hosting the working day. Monies raised will be donated to the Fr John Kingston Mozambique project, Ballinadee National School, DeCourcey boxing club and Ballinadee Community Hall.

De Courceys are delighted to have Farmhand Ltd (Ireland’s largest independent machinery distributer) as a partner for this year’s harvest day. Farmhand a family owned business, operating since 1962 are a farm machinery and farm merchandise distributers with a network of over 40 dealers in Ireland.  Farmhand are exclusive importers for many brands including Krone and Amazone. We look forward to working together and putting on a great show in Sandycove in August. 

The year will finish up with our annual threshing in Ballinadee on the first Sunday in November. The threshing at Corcorans Bar in aid of Arc house cancer support will be preceded by a tractor run from Ballinspittle.

As usual up to date information is available on www.decourceyvintage.com and our FB page.

Harvest working Day 6th August 2018.

The De Courcey Harvest Working day will be held on Monday 6th August 2018. The site will once again be in Harbour View, Kilbrittain. It will take place on the farm of club member Derry Desmond. The club is most grateful to Derry for making the site available to us for a second time. Continuing our support of local charities, 2018 will see funds raised donated to The Margaret O’Dwyer fund, Carmelite friary Kinsale renovation fund, Ballinspittle De-Fib group and West Cork Rapid Response who do such vital life-saving work in our area.

On the evening of 11th July, Club members met with representatives of these groups at the event site to officially launch the Working Day. Also supporting us was champion ploughman Liam O’Driscoll recently returned from competing in Russia.

Dr Jason van der Velde of the Rapid Response attended with his specially equipped rescue jeep completely financed by fundraising in the West Cork area. Also on site were other rescue and emergency services vehicles which will be on show at the Harvest day. 

At the end of April members of the committee had met with Dr Jason’s group to begin planning a farm safety exercise. The exercise will involve several different elements of the emergency services coordinating in respond to a serious accident where a person becomes trapped in a machine. The intention is to raise awareness of safety and also to educate people how to respond to such a serious accident. Preparation is well underway and will be very realistic. 

The 2018 harvest day will feature many new additions to the range of exhibits. De Courcey ‘s will be celebrating the 70th anniversary of the launch of the Landrover in 1948. We will be organising a gathering of all types of Landrover at the event in Kilbrittain. The Club recently took time out at the Innishannon Steam Rally to promote the event with some members and friends getting their landrovers together for a photo opportunity. 

The usual harvest day activities of reaper and binder, combine harvesting, tilling and a whole host of traditional farming activities will of course take centre stage. 

There are a number of restoration projects currently underway in the Club including some vintage combine harvesters that are being prepared for debuts at the show, one of which is Ronan Horgan’s 1971 Clayson 133. In addition, we are expecting a nice number of steam traction engines to also attend. As always the focus will be on activity, with a huge array of vintage machines of all sorts working at the event.

Keep an eye on our facebook page and website www.decourceyvintage.com for further details.

Tractor Run

On Sunday 5th November the annual De Courcey tractor run will depart Garrettstown and travel to Ballinadee for the threshing at Corcoran’s Bar. Gathering from 12:00 at Diarmuid Coughlan’s yard (next door up to Blue Horizon Guesthouse). Donations to ARC House Cancer Support Centre. For further info contact Diarmuid on 087 1205025.

Ford 100 Vintage Run

De Courcey Classic & Vintage club took part in the Ford 100 years in Cork celebrations in a vintage run from the old Ford Factory in Cork to Cork Showgrounds on the 17th of June.