The location of the 2020 National Ploughing Championships has been revealed by the National Ploughing Association (NPA).

At the NPA’s award winner’s banquet earlier today, Sunday, October 13, the association announced that the annual three-day event will be returning to Ballintrane, Fenagh, Co. Carlow, for another year in 2020.

Next year’s event will take place from Tuesday, September 15, through to Thursday, September 17, 2020, NPA managing director Anna May McHugh confirmed.


This follows a particularly successful year for the championships with record-breaking attendance levels.

The third and final day of the 2019 National Ploughing Championships saw an attendance figure of some 81,000 people, according to the NPA.

This brought the total attendance figure for the three-day event up to a record-breaking 297,000 visitors, the NPA revealed.

The previous record attendance, set in 2017, was 291,500 – an increase of some 5,500 attendees, according to the association.

Bright, sunny weather and good conditions well suited to exploring the sprawling ‘Ploughing’ site played an important role in large crowds descending on the venue of Fenagh, Co. Carlow, for all three days of the yearly event, held from Tuesday, September 17 to Thursday, September 19.

The overall attendance figure is well up on the total figure of 240,700 from last year’s NPA attendance records, bouncing back well from a difficult 2018.

Heavily impacted by bad weather and Storm Ali, the 2018 event saw approximately 61,700 people flocked through the gates on the final day – with this year’s equivalent up well by comparison.