Castles, Follies and Four-Leaf Clovers by Rosamund Burton

Author:Rosamund Burton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2011-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

The next I know I hear the grandfather clock at the bottom of the stairs chime eight. As I lie in bed I watch the house martins circling outside the window. They swoop towards the glass, looking as if they are going to fly straight through it, but at the last moment they twist and dive away. I’m still stiff and sore when I get up, but doing some yoga helps.

The kitchen of this attractive 200-year-old stone house is immediately to the left of the front door. The kitchen table sits in the middle of the room between the large Georgian window and the Aga. It is the most conducive place for talking. I linger here, chatting and eating pieces of Alison’s homemade soda bread toasted on the Aga and drinking mugs of weak Lady Grey tea. Eventually Alison says, ‘Right’, in that definite way which precedes getting on with a day. Nick disappears to his office and I realise I’d better get moving.

Despite the fact that she is looking for a pony for her grandson Baz, Alison can’t be persuaded to come with me to the Tallow Horse Fair today. She says she’s scared that she would end up buying a four-legged beast, which would be quite likely to have some dreadful quirk that would put Baz off riding for life. Given she told me last night that her mother bought two donkeys on the quay in Cork before getting on the ferry back to England, I can see that she might have a genetic tendency towards impulse buying, but on the other hand if she is looking for a pony a horse fair isn’t a bad place to find one.

Alison has a good eye for a horse. She once bought a hunter from the Tallow Fair which she rode for fifteen years. He was a good horse, except that he would rear up when he had had enough, and no matter what she did she couldn’t break this habit. She goes on to tell me that the calibre of horses being sold today are not what they were. At that moment her son Charles sticks his head through the kitchen window and adds disparagingly that the Tallow Horse Fair is ‘now just a lot of knackers and tinkers’.

Undeterred I’m looking forward to today. For me this annual event epitomises the Irish love of the horse and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Ireland’s most well-known horse fair is at Ballinasloe in County Galway, which was first held more than 300 years ago. The Tallow Fair has been going for more than a century. As well as drawing anyone wanting to buy or sell horses, or who is up for a good day out and catching up with friends, the fairs also attract Ireland’s travelling people who are great horse dealers.

Known in Irish as an Lucht Siúil, ‘the walking people’, Irish Travellers are believed to be descended from those made homeless by Oliver Cromwell’s military campaign in Ireland and later during the Great Famine.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.