The Loy of the Land

USE OF THE IRISH FOOT PLOUGH called a loy nearly died out in the 1980s, after centuries of farmers and gardeners using it to dig neat furrows all over the island. From the Irish laí, meaning “spade,” the loy’s fall from grace had been a long time coming: In the mid-18th century, the familiar broad-bladed spade you can find today in every hardware store — and nearly every garage and garden shed in the U.S. — began to take over the loy’s traditional position as the main tool for hand tillage in Ireland. Many years later, farmers adopted tractors as the most efficient way to work large areas of land with few laborers. Increased urbanization saw fewer and fewer market gardens and kitchen plots planted.

PLOUGHING A NEW FURROW

Eamon Egan watched a lone man turn a furrow with a loy at a County Leitrim ploughing competition in the