By Sandra Mallon

Copyright irishmirror

RTE star Marty Morrissey has announced he is taking ‘The Marty Party’ to Europe next month – as he joined tens of thousands at the first day of the National Ploughing Championships.

Organisers revealed up to 80,000 attended the 94th annual championships in Screggan, Tullamore, Co Offaly.Hundreds of stalls lined the fields of Screegan as President Michael D Higgins and founder Anna May McHugh excitedly opened the three day event.

On day one, host Marty Morrissey brought the sunshine to the ploughing as the GAA correspondent was among the thousands of farming enthusiasts, young and old. The 66-year-old was on hand at the Hidden Hearing tent, which launched their new health initiative between the organisation and the Irish Heart Foundation.

Marty revealed he is set to take his popular Marty Party to Europe, securing six nights in Spain to hold the fun event.He told us: “I was in Calpe, because we’re doing the Marty Party in this location so I went over to do a recce, which took about 35 minutes, but I made it two weeks, you know, as you do,” he said laughing.

“I’m doing six shows. The first show is October 3 until October 8. We’ve just close to 500 people going, which is great.”Marty opened up about how surprised he is at the popularity of The Marty Party, which started out as a joke by Mario Rosenstock and Oliver Callan.

He said: “It was, I mean, the Marty Party started with Mario Rosenstock and Oliver Callan, basically taking the piss out of me.”I remember, you know when, when it happened in the past to Colm Murray, and it was way back in the 90s.”I’d only just started in our team, and Apres Match started imitating him, and Colm didn’t really like it.

“I said Colm, this is the greatest compliment, is that somebody would imitate you and never thinking that a day will come where they would imitate me.”

But he admitted that when it first happened, the Clare star “didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t know what to make of it. And I was wondering what the reaction would be.”

He said he didn’t want to be seen as a laughing stock. In fairness, I laughed when I saw it, because it was me with a pink shirt down to the belly button with white teeth, hair all over the place.

“And instead of saying Marty Morrissey, RTE News Croke Park, it was saying, Hi, I’m Marty, and I like to party, which is actually true, as you know.

“So it started from there, and then a couple years ago, I did various shows around Ireland, and Killarney and Letterkenny and Galway and Limerick and thousands turned up.

“It’s a variety show, an old fashioned variety show, but also because we have people who are a little bit deaf and they loved it because the music, they could hear it.

Speaking about joining forces with Hidden Hearing on Tuesday, Marty launched a new nationwide health initiative between the organisation and the Irish Heart Foundation.

The collaboration brings together the expertise of both organisations to deliver free hearing health and heart health checks to communities across Ireland.

Using both organisations’ Mobile Health Units, the initiative will bring vital preventive care directly to rural and underserved communities.

The public will be able to drop in, with no appointment needed, for a free hearing health check provided by Hidden Hearing, alongside a free blood pressure check and heart health consultation from the Irish Heart Foundation’s nurses, at the Health Units visiting their localities over the coming weeks and months.

Marty said: “I think it is very important to hear the sounds of Ireland. And it doesn’t matter what age you are, that you hear the sounds of Ireland, whether that be the atlantic ocean lapping the wild atlantic way, or the All Ireland hurling final day, or indeed the Aviva with the women’s rugby team, that roar.

“I’ve done work with the Irish Heart Foundation. I suppose I’m conscious of health. My grandfather and my father both died of heart attacks, so I’m particularly aware of how important it is.

“And my grandmother went deaf, so I was conscious of how inconvenient it was and how frustrating it was,” he added.

Elsewhere during the first day of the Ploughing Championships, Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly and Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan announced a mega recruitment drive for new gardai will kick off next Thursday.

Commissioner Kelly outlined the importance of becoming a member of An Garda Siochana. He said: “It opens up on Thursday the 18th, at midnight, it’s going to be open for three weeks. It gives people an opportunity to make a real difference. The work you can do as a garda has a real effect on people’s lives.

“And what could be more meaningful than keeping people in our community safe, particularly the most vulnerable in our society? T”The thing about being a guard is no two days are the same. It’s a career with such a variety to it. In fact, in one 12 hour shift, you can meet a whole range of people and deal with a whole range of issues.

“Of course, there can be tough days as well. There can be physical confrontation, really difficult issues to deal with, but we in management of An Garda Siochana provide the right training, the right equipment and the right supports.

“However, what I would say, having spent 33 years in An Garda Siochana, despite these tough days, there are definitely more good days than bad.”

He described the level of camaraderie in the force as he opened up about his own experience. “I joined way back in 1992 and some of the people that I joined the guards with, some of those people are still my very best friends. Another aspect of the career that I just want to mention briefly is around your career options. So for people now that join, of course, there’s people who join and they stay in frontline policing, and that’s fantastic that they do that.

“And frontline policing is our absolute backbone of our organisation, and people as well involved in community policing, which, as I’ve always said, Is the bedrock of policing here in Ireland. But on top of that, as well, there’s lots of specialisation.

“I’d really ask people between the ages of 18 and 49 to really consider An Garda Siochana as as a career worth doing and particularly, I’d just like to ask parents of school leavers and school leavers themselves, obviously, to consider and An Garda Siochana as a career.”And that’s what I did myself. We’re looking for people from all across the country to join the organisation, so from rural areas, from urban and all elements of our community. lly important that we have an all an organisation that’s reflective of our communities.”Away from the politics buzz, Joe Cleary set up an old style cottage called The Thatch VC showing farming life back in the day.Joe said: “The best thing about ploughing is meeting people.

“It’s a lot of work setting up, but it’s great when you’re set up, you meet a lot of people and it’s, you know, they’re fascinated by the things that’s still there. Yeah. We have kept everything and restored everything. So it’s something different, it’s something unusual.”He added: “Old people, they can’t believe what they’re seeing. A lot of old people love to see it and brings back old memories to them the way they survived years ago.

“There was no mobile phones, no ASB, nothing. There was no drinking water, you had to pump it from a well behind you off a pump. Oh yeah, gosh. Washing facilities was very little.”

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here.