Chairman’s Note of Thanks

It is both a pleasure and an honour for me as chairman of the South East Clare Show Society to welcome viewers and readers to our newly created web site, which has been compiled by Quinton Bourke. 
The society held its first show in 1990 and has grown annually in volume and popularity, now widely acknowledged as one of the top ten agricultural shows in Ireland. The show provides a showpiece for the best livestock, bloodstock, horticultural produce as well as crafts and home industry.
It would also be equally important for me to acknowledge the efforts of the present committee who have spared no effort in preparation of this years show.

To all the competitors sponsors, supporters, patrons and friends of the show I say a sincere thank you and wish you an enjoyable day on July 27th.


Pat Hayes
Show Chairman.

Our Background
The South East Clare Show show grounds are located in Clonboy, near Bridgetown at the foothills of the Slieve Bernagh mountains in East Clare, five miles from Killaloe and ten from Limerick City. The village with its church, school, creamery and shops is the focal point of all the local agricultural community. The farming tradition in this area stretches back at least five thousand years as evidenced by the Wedge shaped Gallery Grave called “Ardataggle Dolmen” which stands about one mile south west of Bridgetown. The first farmers who settled here at the end of the Stone Age built this tomb.

The many ring-forts which date back two thousand years to the Iron Age, enclosed the wooden farmhouses of the period and afforded protection to the cattle and sheep at night. Many of the local place names are derived from land types and useages, such as Ardclooney High pasture, Ardataggle Height of the rye, Cappakea Blind tillage-plot, Clonboy Yellow pasture, Cloncloher Sheltered pasture, and Fahy A level green field.

Bridgetown has seen its share of history down through the ages. Cromwell’s army marched through here in 1651 leaving a trail of destruction. Exactly 301 years ago on 22nd July 1690 Lieutenant John Stephens of King James army was in Bridgetown and commented on the good state of the road. Three weeks later Patrick Sarsfield and his riders galloped through the village on their famous midnight ride to destroy King William’s siege train at Ballyneety.

In 1760 the first coach serviced linking Limerick and Dublin passed through Bridgetown and Killaloe. The coach was called “The Fly” and the journey to Dublin took three days.

John Stephens has also left us a description of the country side about: “scarce any corn or meadow, but only a hilly common in some places boggy, everywhere covered with ferns and rushes, which is all it produces”. But after the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 the face of the landscape was changed. The new settlers the landlords began reclaiming and cultivating the land, enclosing the fields opening new roads and leasing to the native tenants. The principal landlords of the area were the Arthurs of Glenomera, Lord Leconfield of England and the Browns of Clonboy. For more than 250 years they dominated life in the area by controlling the tenancy of their estates, maintaining law and order, establishing fairs etc. Killaloe fairs date from 1614, O’Briensbridge 1746. Ernest Brown the last of his line died in 1942 and after two years his estate was sold in eleven lots to local farmers. 

The co-operative moment pioneered by Sir Horace Plunkett reached Bridgetown in 1911 when the Bridgetown Agricultural Society was founded. Two years later the Hired Implement Society was set up and in 1915 the Bridgetown Poultry and Egg Society was established. The greatest and most enduring of the co-operative enterprises was the Farmers Creamery Society formed in 1913 even through the Condensed Milk Company’s (Cleeve’s) Creamery already existed in Bridgetown. Edward MacLysaght wrote in 1916: “Bridgetown has benefited from co-operation in four distinct ways. It has learnt business methods and has made more money than it would have made without co-operation. It has gained a spirit of self-reliance. It has increased is tillage and so its employment of labour. It has gained morally, psychologically and materially. And if a mere parish has thus profited how must Ireland as a whole benefitted from co-operation.”

That co-operation and self-reliant spirit of eighty years ago still lives on. The South East Clare Show is the result of the foresight, initiative and efforts of the local community.

Ar scath a cheile a mhaireann na daoine.

Sean Kierse.