As I sit down to write about myself, a difficult enough task, our youngest grandchild, aged 10, is enjoying her second Easter pony camp week at her Galway riding school. She is keen to go each morning and I instantly recognise the scenario. I was a couple of years older than she is, when I had my first opportunity to be in close contact with ponies.

We moved from Crumlin to the seaside village of Bearna, outside Galway, after I finished primary school, when my father moved to work in Galway.

I always dreamed of living in the country and maybe even having a pony, so I was thrilled to move to an old house in its own grounds.

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A friend and I were soon entrusted with the job of leading out visiting riders around the Bearna roadways, or to the Silver Strand, the two of us on bikes and afterwards riding the ponies bareback to their small rocky fields. Later there was boarding school, other teenage interests and then University, dances in the Seapoint and Hangar ballrooms, marriage and four children.

FAMILY LIFE

Our eldest daughter Eavan wanted a pony, but a small dog sufficed for a time. She joined the local Girl Guide Cubs and I took on the task of writing weekly Guide Notes in the old Connacht Sentinel. Collating news and meeting deadlines was a new experience.

Eavan enjoyed riding lessons in Moycullen, west of Galway and ended up spending summer holidays working there.

She saved religiously and we bought a young Connemara mare from the Mayo raconteur and horseman John Daly.

Aideen, our second daughter – neither of our two sons were interested in ponies – acquired her own pony when we bought a Welsh Section B mare. Pony clubbing, winter leagues and travelling to summer shows all over Connacht became a way of life.

We bought a few acres near Moycullen as renting land in the city became difficult, and put some stables into an old shed and had a small sand arena. We enjoyed about 10 years of running a small yard, gradually selling on and buying a bigger pony as each child grew.

There was plenty of driving off for hay, feed or bedding, pony washing, grooming, worming and shoeing, mucking out stables and pony schooling. We bred some foals, mainly Welsh and they were backed and trained by the girls.

MEDIA AND PUBLICATION

In the early 1990s I became a member of the Irish Pony Society’s (IPS) Western Area committee and soon found myself taking photos of show activities and sending results and pictures to The Irish Field and Irish Farmers Journal.

I was on the committee of the Galway County Show in the 1990s, a two-day held each June in the beautifully spacious grounds of Kilcornan House in Clarinbridge.

One evening, at a committee meeting, the chairman of that era, Eamon Hannon, produced a large silver medal which was to go for auction and it bore the legend, Connacht Grand Provincial Horse Show 1895. He suggested that someone on the committee might like to follow up the story of the medal and the show.

Thus began the adventure which led to the publication of my first book – I was hooked.

I discovered that the Galway City Library had a treasure trove of old newspapers on microfilm and there I began my search. In my hours of research I discovered records going back to the 19th century and references and show descriptions going back to 1892 when the show was held in Eyre Square.

The show soon became a well-organised and elaborate affair with newspaper maps of the jumping layout in the square.

My book, Galway Show – The Story, 1892 – 2000, was launched in early summer 2002. I derived so much satisfaction from meeting and talking to local people about their memories of the annual show and in completing the book.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Two years later, I produced another equine related work, called ‘A Way with Horses’. I interviewed Galway people whose lives revolved around horses and also tried to paint a picture of different spheres of equestrian activity, people and families involved.

My final ‘horsey’ book was ‘Connemara Pony Handbook’, self-published in 2007. I used a lot of my own photos, Eavan did all the artwork and Aideen advised on content. I like to think it might have given, to younger readers especially, the ability to see this fine and beautiful animal as it is today, carefully-bred according to the Breeders Society guidelines.

In 2000 my father sadly died. He left a lengthy but moving account of his eventful life, typed and bound, for his family.

I finally read it all and decided to publish it. By 2015, after editing, it had become another self-published book called ‘Memoir of an Irish Economist, Working Class Manchester to Irish Academia’.

On retirement my husband Eoin became a translator of books and articles written in Irish by an Easter Rising veteran who spent 40 years of his life as the Professor of Romance Languages in University College Galway, called Liam Ó Briain.

He wrote of his time in Galway gaol in 1920. In 2016, ‘Insurrection Memories 1916’ was published. This week in the Mansion House, Essays by an Irish Rebel was launched.

After nearly 10 years of doing Niamh’s Weblog, I hoped a younger volunteer would continue with the Pony Blog but nobody did. So a trip to Clifden was arranged for the recent 2019 Spring Festival and, despite a malfunctioning camera, I snapped some stallions in the glorious sunshine. And yes they are on Niamh’s Weblog.

This is the final article in the Ringside Stories series by Susan Finnerty.