Originally extending to 365ac, the field was said to have "an acre for every day of the year". \ Barry Cronin

It takes 10 days to plough it, four days to plant it and four days to harvest the crop. From its centre, the land stretches as far as the eye can see. This is Ireland’s biggest field.

Extending to 334ac in total, the field at Hilltown, Bellewstown, Co Meath, has no divisions and can be worked as a single unit by owners Michael and Marie McGuinness.

The field has a fascinating history. The land was originally part of the Hilltown estate, owned by Major Boylan until the late 1970s when it was bought by Raymond Coyle of Largo Foods, known as Mr Tayto to many.

Coyle removed most of the hedges on the farm to create one enormous field from a farm that was laid out in 12 divisions, giving a field that had “an acre for every day of the year”.

When Coyle ran into financial trouble, owing IR£1.2m to the banks, he came up with the idea of raffling his farm to raise the money. Priced at £300, more than 4,000 tickets were bought, clearing Coyle’s debt.

The lucky winner was the late Austin Lawlor, a Wicklow farmer who farmed the field for a number of years before selling it to the McGuinness brothers, John, Michael and Thomas, in 1986.

Today it is owned by Michael and Marie McGuinness, who in the intervening period sold 31ac of the field to reduce it to its current size of 334ac.

“It’s been in continuous tillage as long as we’ve had it and we always get good yields,” Michael told the Irish Farmers Journal. “It’s good dry free-draining land. Winter wheat normally yields 11t/ha and winter barley normally 10t/ha.”

“I think it’s the biggest field in the country, I don’t know of anything like it in Ireland,” he added. “It’s a good block of land, approximately 1km square. There are some hills in it but all the land is readily available to work.

“We’ve concentrated on building up the nutrition through the soil organic matter and generally good farming practice. We rotate the crops and in the past we have grown potatoes, oilseed rape, beans and cereals.”

Measuring around 1km long and 1km wide, working this field takes more planning than most and it is farmed in five plots to make it more manageable.

For 2017, the field has been planted with two crops of barley and wheat – winter barley varieties Tower and Infinity, and winter wheat varieties JB Diego and Costello. The grain will be dried and stored at home before being sold through Deeside Agri in Co Louth, Michael’s native county.

Michael and Marie McGuinness, centre, pictured with their sons Ciaran and Peter, and Dan Sheehan. \ Barry Cronin

At harvest time, four combines roar into action – one owned and three hired in from regular contractor Richard Chambers, Leinster Farm Machinery and Meath Farm Machinery.

Helping Michael and Marie with the work are sons Peter, an airline pilot who has returned to farming, and Ciaran, who combines farming with his job with Bank of Ireland, as well as Dan Sheehan, who has been with the McGuinness family “since he was a toddler”, according to Michael.

Working under the Laburnum Farms banner, the team works more than 2,500ac of tillage across counties Meath and Louth.

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