A Fair Show, happy Travelers Diaries July 6, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Aquarium, Cars, Cash, China, Destination, Dolphinarium, Ireland, Library, Museum, Restaurant, Round The World, Tour , 3commentsThrough Leinster and Munster, along Connaught lanes and highways there’s a movement. Brazenly on verges, tucked behind hedges, parked in laybys there are caravans. Not tourists but the homes of the Irish Travellers, the Tinkers. Herds of their horses hold up the traffic. Greys, chestnuts, roans, bays and the especial pride, the batty mares: great coloured, patched horses, piebald and skewbald, hooves swathed in shaggy hair. They’re all heading along roads which lead to the nub, the October fair, Ballinasloe. A convergence for horses and horsemanship, dealing and drinking, exchanging news and the “crack”. “You’ll never see as many horses together as you will at Ballinasloe. Once Seamus McGinty rode down the high street at the head of sixty, his sons as outriders flanking their wealth.” (more…)
