My father, a master of the reins

With the Dublin Horse Show on this week, Colman Garrihy offers a personal perspective on the Irish draught

IN the registered Irish draught horse classes of this year’s Dublin Horse Show, up to 70 entries will vie for top honours in six mare, stallion and foal classes.

The draught horse is known for its versatility for the amateur rider and as a foundation breed for the Irish sport horse. But the horse had a different role. The placid, powerful and reliable animal was central to farm life, when farmer and horse combined to perform a range of duties, when horse power mattered for harvesting and the survival of family farms.

I have vivid memories of this largely forgotten era in rural Ireland: a north-west Clare farm overlooking the Atlantic ocean; bringing home the harvest from the meadows and turf from the bog; a faithful workhorse and caring master.

I can see my late father, Joe, sitting contentedly on the seat of the mower as he guided Doonbay, his trusted draught horse, around the meadow. Working in harmony, man and horse cut down the blades of grass into neat swathes. Gently, but firmly, Joe directed the grey mare, with a slight tug of the reins and a clear ‘go on’ or ‘turn in’ command.

This was one of many tasks they performed together. They worked the tedder, which scattered the freshly-mown crop with its rotating forks, and the hay rake, whose curved prongs mechanically gathered it into bundles for tram-making. The mare pulled the hay float that brought the trams from the meadows for winter storage. A pulley and thick ropes were used by her master to lever them onto the float. The pair drew home turf from the bog with a cart fitted with a timber creel cage.

Many a furrow and drill they ploughed with iron and timber ploughs as they tilled the soil to grow potatoes and vegetables for the table.

More childhood memories: my father giving me a spin on his lap as he guided mare and mower; as a young teenager, the thrill of being entrusted with the reins on my own; the excitement of ricking day as neighbours gathered to help my father make the trams into a big hay stack in the open haggard.

Now to different memories. To 1978, when Joe and Doonbay still performed many of their usual tasks but, this time, their every move was captured for posterity. They became film stars in a television documentary, A Horse’s Tale.

It was one of a four-part series called Curious Eyes produced and directed by Neville Presho. The series featured children observing and experiencing skills and traditions practised by older people.

A Horse’s Tale was inspired by prize-winning entries in a national essay competition on These Changing Times — An Saol ag Athrú, written by pupils at the local Moy national school. Filmed by cameraman, Robert Monks, it was made in co-operation with RTÉ and later shown on Channel 4. The plot involved a mare competing for her master’s affections with a tractor, symbolising the doomed attempt of old traditions to survive against modern equipment. The 25-minute programme filmed Joe and Doonbay cutting and shaking hay and drawing home turf. It showed the blacksmith shoeing the mare in Ennistymon while her repaired bridle is retrieved from a local saddler.

Three boys, John, Michael and Seán, lent a hand with the jobs and developed a strong attachment to the horse. In later scenes, Joe ponders switching from horse to tractor power, after seeing the machine at a cattle fair in Kilmihil, one of the last in Co Clare.

The die seems to be cast when he goes to the renowned Spancilhill horse fair with the intention of selling Doobay. But there’s a sting in this particular horse’s tale.

On seeing a steady drip of engine oil flowing from a tractor there, confirming his nagging doubts about the new-fangled machine, Joe decides to keep his faithful servant after all.

In the closing scenes, he takes Doonbay home to be set free, to the sheer delight of the children.

Looking back now, as the draught horse is showcased in a different context at the Dublin Horse Show, how right producer/director Presho was when he said then: “So much of our heritage will be lost forever if we don’t record it now.”

On a personal note, how fortunate my family and I are to have such a precious reminder on film of Joe, father and grandfather, a wonderful presence in our lives, and of the many exploits he undertook with his trusted mare.

- The registered Irish draught mares (two classes) and foals (three) will be judged this afternoon at the Dublin Horse Show, when a parade of draught stallions also takes place. The latter will be judged during Nations’ Cup Day on Friday, when the champion draught mare and reserve will also feature in the champions’ parade.

Picture: Joe Garrihy with his trusted mare Doonbay at the family farm in Co Clare.