Timetable is subject to change.
On the evening of Monday 17th July, The De Courcey Classic and Vintage Club held a launch night for the 2024 Harvest Working Day.
Club Chairman John O’Neill welcomed everyone and explained why the club had chosen Pieta as this year’s charity. Caitriona O’Mahony, Pieta fundraising manager, thanked John and the Club for supporting Pieta before introducing Kate Roberts from the recently set up Dunmanway outreach centre. Kate spoke about the support that Pieta provides in West Cork and stressed the importance of local fundraising to keep the service open.
Dan Buckley of Paudy Buckley Tractors Ltd was Joined by Kevin Kelleher from Valtra at the event. Dan thanked Christy Draper and family for hosting the event and said how happy he was to be working with De Courcey Vintage Club in raising funds for Pieta.
Unfortunately, Kevin Mackey from our second sponsor MP Crowley sent his apologies as he was unable to attend. We look forward to seeing Kevin on 5th August with a range of Mecalac and Kubuta plant equipment on display.
The De Courcey Classic and Vintage Club are delighted to announce that Paudy Buckley and Co Ltd Vicarstown and MP Crowley ltd Curraheen, will be participating in this year’s Harvest Day on the August Bank Holiday Monday in Ballinspittle. Both companies are very enthusiastic about supporting Pieta, our chosen charity for 2024.
Chairman John O’Neill, Secretary John Quinn and myself met with Dan Buckley at his new premises in Vicarstown in April. Dan gave us a tour of the new buildings and an introduction to the latest Valtra Q series tractor in his yard. Paudy Buckley and Co. ltd are dealers for Valtra tractors and Weidermann loaders. The Buckleys have a long interest in vintage machinery and during our visit, Dan showed us several vintage cars and tractors including a 1950’s Valtra 15 which is believed to be the oldest of its kind in Ireland. We look forward to seeing the vintage Valtra alongside the highly automated Q series 305 at the Harvest Day.
MP Crowley Ltd supply a wide range on machinery including the Kubuto and Mecalac brands from their premises overlooking the showgrounds at Curraheen. Loading shovels, backhoes, mini diggers and dumpers were all on display when I visited the premises at Hobbs Yard. Kevin Mackey and Brendan O’Connell were on hand to show me the latest Mecalac telescopic loader and Kubuto mini digger. They are looking forward to displaying their machinery, meeting the public and answering questions about their equipment at the Harvest Day.
We are also thrilled to confirm that Finbarr Dennehy and family will once again be providing the
entertainment at the Harvest working day. Finbarr and co were a huge success last year and
delighted the crowd with some wonderful Irish traditional and country music.
Keep an eye on our facebook page for updates.
Bill Chambers PRO De Courcey Classic and Vintage Club.
We have rescheduled the Harvest day to take place on Saturday next, 6th Aug. Activities will be starting about mid-day and we will have a fine selection of vintage cars, tractors and commercials on display. We will have tillage with vintage machines, competition ploughing demonstrations and of course combines, trailed, self-propelled and also a range of the most up to date modern machines. Fingers crossed for a fine day! We look forward to seeing you in Ballinspittle.
De Courcey Harvest Working Day will take place on the Hayes Farm, Kilkerran, Ballinspittle, Co. Cork on Bank Holiday Monday 1st August 2022.
Old time tillage and harvest working displays. Competition ploughing. Static displays of stationary engines, cars, tractors and commercial vehicles
Last year the club was delighted to be able to give funds from our Harvest Day to The West Cork Fundraising Community whom since 2018 have been working towards raising enough funds to buy a tractor and other farm machinery for Fr. John Kingston’s mission in Mozambique. Clonakilty native Fr. John Kingston has been working in Mozambique since 1990, focusing primarily on helping the local community to farm.
The mission has been granted a significant plot of land (approximately 100 hectares) in Chimolo, which, if it goes unused will be taken back by the state, this would result in the eviction and loss of livelihood of a number of locals. We were delighted to hear back in May that the mission has now taken possession of a new tractor and implements to enable them to properly farm the land. See pictures of tractor arriving.
Earlier in June, we received some more pictures of the tractor, this time actually at work on the mission farm. We wish Fr Kingston the very best in the work he is doing helping the farming community in Mozambique.
John O’Donovans farm Sandycove, Ballinspittle, was the setting for the 9th annual DeCourcey Harvest Working Day held as usual on the August Bank Holiday Monday. The event was run to raise money for The Fr Kingston Mission in Mozambique, Ballinadee School, Ballinadee Hall and DeCourceys Boxing club.
This year Farmhand Ltd with local distributor Derry O’Donovan Ltd were partners with the Club in running the event. Farmhand brought a fresh modern element to the Harvest Day, the highlight of which was the impressive parade of farm machinery from their catalogue. Full credit must go to Derry and Moira O’Donovan for assembling the array of equipment in one place. On the grandstand was Farmhand sales director David Borland who gave a detailed commentary on the machines as they paraded past.
In amongst the modern gear, there were a few early machines as well, including an Amazone fertilizer spinner originally sold new in Bandon in 1970 and an old Krone muck spreader, both of which were on vintage Massey Fergusons from the same era. Marketing director Stephen Scrivener was also present and was kept busy for the afternoon meeting past and future customers in the Farmhand hospitality tent. The team had a constant stream of visitors looking to chat and to purchase merchandise from the machinery brands on display.
This year the Harvest day also featured several working horses. They spent the day collecting sheaves from the binders and drawing them to the threshing machines. Well done to local Jack O’Reilly for the fine job in restoring the horse butt which he brought to the show. It was lovely to see the butt in use throughout the day.
Two threshers were in use during the event. Sullivan’s Clayton and Shuttleworth thresher was driven by Lordan’s Marshall traction engine and John O’Neill’s Ransomes was driven by Bart Desmond’s Crossley oil engine. The oil engine was driving several belts to also power a Claas trusser and a grinding mill. Murphys from Kinsale had their 1907 Fowler engine on display.
As usual, the event featured a variety of reaper and binders, trailed combines and vintage combines as well as landowner John O’Donovans 2012 Claas Lexion Montana. Away from the harvesting, the tilling area had a range of different vintage machines ploughing and harrowing. Keith Bryan from Waterfall had his wonderful Titan tractor pulling a trailed plough having earlier in the day had a reaper and binder in tow. 
At the lower end of the field Gearoid Walsh was giving a demonstration with an Amazone Cayros plough and alongside Liam O’Driscoll was putting his Kirovets K-424 articulated tractor through its paces with a reversible plough belonging to Jim O’Regan.
Once again the weather was very kind to us as we had beautiful sunshine for the afternoon. We give a big thank you to the landowner, sponsors and everyone who worked so hard to make the event a success. Looking forward to our 10th Harvest day in 2020.
This year’s De Courcey Harvest Day will be held on Bank Holiday Monday, August 5. The location will be Sandycove, Ballinspittle, Co. Cork.
Farmhand – the distributor of well-known machinery brands such as Krone, Amazone and Quicke – is the main sponsor of this year’s event, in conjunction with local dealer Derry O’Donovan Machinery.
The De Courcey Harvest Day began back in 2011 as a working demonstration; it’s now described as a “national event”.
Read the article in full at https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/mix-of-new-and-old-destined-for-de-courcey-harvest-day/
Highlight of the 2018 Harvest day in Kilbrittain was the simulated farm accident. Spectators were horrified to see a man becoming trapped in the intake auger of a combine harvester when trying to clear a blockage in the header. Luckily Dr Jason van der Velde from West Cork Rapid Response was on site as were members of the H.S.E. ambulance service, and Coastguard.
Dr Jason explained the actions being performed to extract the victim from the machine. Using his DART philosophy( Disengage, Analgesia(Pain Relief), Reverse and Tourniquet) the casualty was safely removed from the combine treated and removed from the site. Jason then answered questions from the audience. Many thanks to everyone who participated in this excellent demonstration we hope it will raise safety awareness and also inform people of what to do in the event of an accident happening.
