Standing ovation for Anna May McHugh

Legend: Anna May McHugh, president of the National Ploughing Association, receives her Lifetime Achievement award from ICMSA president John Comer

Darragh McCullough

She claimed that she was just a small cog in the machine that is the National Ploughing Championships, but in the same breath admitted that she made the "wheel go faster".

It was a fitting acknowledgement by the National Ploughing Association's (NPA) CEO, Anna May McHugh, on the night that she was awarded the Zurich Farming Independent Lifetime Achievement award at a glitzy event in Dublin last Friday.