On yer bike – from Ardrahan to Dublin city
‘ON, yer bike, and off to Dublin in the green, in the green’ – that was the motto last weekend of Ardrahan’s Pat Murphy who cycled his way to Dublin for the IFA rally in Merrion Square on Sunday.
“I enjoy doing a bit of cycling, although I hadn’t done a lot in preparation for a trip to Dublin, but I got through it all right,” the Connacht IFA Chairman, told the Farming Tribune.
He said that the motive for completing his 206km, two-day journey from his native Ardrahan to the IFA Farm Centre in Bluebell, Dublin, was to help draw attention to Sunday’s national rally.
Pat ‘broke the back’ on the journey on Friday when he cycled to Kinnegad with the help of a back-up vehicle, courtesy of daughter Ciara and her boyfriend, Conor Niland while Mike McInerney and Martin Murphy, cycled part of the Galway trip with him.
Galway IFA Chairperson Anne Mitchell provided the support on the second part of the trip and Pat Murphy was glad of the support. “It was great to have that back-up vehicle on both days in case anything went wrong, and it also helped to provide an extra element of safety for the trip,” he said.
According to Anne Mitchell, the IFA man averaged 27kph on that last leg of the trip which she said was ‘great going’, given the wet conditions on Saturday morning.
A head wind on the journey from Kilbeggan to Kinnegad proved to be the toughest part of the cycle for Pat Murphy, who said that the whole purpose of the cycle and Sunday’s rally was to highlight the issues facing farmers over the coming years.
“The decisions being taken now on CAP, nitrates and climate change in relation to farming will have major implications for the future of agriculture over the next 15 to 20 years.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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