The Swinford Agricultural Show Society has announced that the 2024 staging of the show has been cancelled due to unfavourable weather.
The society made the announcement “with great regret”, and said that the decision to cancel this year’s Swinford Agricultural Show in Co. Mayo was “very difficult”.
The event was meant to take place this Sunday (August 25).
The society said the decision was made “in the interest of health and safety as a result of the quantity of rain that has fallen since [last] Sunday and the unfavourable forecast for the next few days”.
According to the organisers, this month has seen 177mm of rain fall in Swinford, and 76mm in the last seven days alone.
The society confirmed that everyone who has entries in the show will be contacted by the committee and full refunds will be issued.
The organisers thanked all those on its committee, and all its volunteers, who “have done so much work for this year’s show”.
The society also thanked their sponsors, and thanked its patrons for their support.
“We apologise for any inconvenience that this may have caused.” the society said.
The Swinford Agricultural Show is not the first agricultural show to fall foul of the weather this summer.
Last month, following the postponement of the 2024 Gorey Agricultural Show the previous month, organisers announced that the show will not go ahead this year as no suitable alternative date was found.
The show’s committee had announced in June that the event would be postponed due to difficult ground conditions.
The show, with a schedule of some 300 classes, had been scheduled to take place on Saturday, June 15, at Ashton, Ballycanew, Co. Wexford.
The committee had said it would arrange a new date, but confirmed in July that this had not been possible.
A statement from the committee had said: “The Committee of Gorey Agricultural Shows have had to make the unenviable decision and cancel our 2024 show. Despite the best efforts of The Irish Shows Association to allocate us a new date, none of the dates were suitable.
“July and August are very busy months for our area and unfortunately we have not been able to find a date that suits everybody,” the Gorey show committee had said.