I was born in Aughagower, Co Mayo, and of three sons, I was the only one of our family involved in horses. I learned a lot from my grandfather, John – it was him I learned this trade from. He drove the parish priest on his rounds from one church to the other, 14 miles every week, come hell or high water.

From Aughagower and Westport, you’ve a clear view of Croagh Patrick. I climbed it for the 63rd time this year. My grand-uncles John and Robbie emigrated from Aughagower to Kenosha, Wisconsin where they built up an 80-horse livery stable.

Patsy [nee Duffy] and I got married in 1963. We lived first on the Castlebar Road in Westport and bought eight-and-a-half acres in Drummindoo in 1970, where we built up a stud and riding school.

I wrote out the list of stallions we had since 1965. There were 21 of them – Connemaras, thoroughbreds, Irish Draughts and even an Arabian! Carna Dun stood here for one season, then another dun, Camlin Comet and the last Connemara was Kylemore Rocky.

The first thoroughbred we had was First Bow, then Column, Fast Frigate, Tremblant, Spirit House and the last one; Muchea.

The Bord na gCapall stallion Fast Frigate came here through Dermot Forde and won the Croker Cup in 1984. Spirit House, owned by my son Padraic and his wife Valerie, won the Cup again in 2004.

The country stallion is obsolete

Mayo Pride, Shuttlecock, Clonleigh Dancer and Clew Bay Bouncer were the Irish Draughts and Clew Bay Bouncer, sold to Martin Shaughnessy, was the last stallion at Drummindoo.

There’s very little hope at all for the country stallion, maybe the bigger studs will survive. The country stallion is obsolete. You would want to be covering 40 mares when you take your time, feed and insurance – all that has to be paid for. The only salvation for stallion owners in getting paid was the covering cert.

Possibly our downfall was all the breeders got a grant for breeding and bred every sort of mare that ever there was and ever since, we’re trying to mop up.

Clew Bay bouncer

I started working as a bouncer in 1964 at the Starlight Ballroom and then for 37 years at the Castlecourt Hotel, owned by the Corcoran family. They’ve built up an empire of hotels here in Westport. There’s no comparison to what the job was like. In the beginning if someone caused trouble or was drunk, they were took by the back of the neck and put outside, end of story. It’s a different story now, they have rights and the law seems to be on the side of the offender.

My philosophy in life is I believe in having dialogue first. They’re somebody’s son or daughter. The youth of today are faced with huge problems. Drink isn’t so bad, drugs seem to creeping in everywhere.

You could be Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour, Sinn Féin, it didn’t matter

Back in the 1950s, tourists were an unusual sight here. It would be like seeing a cat with no tail! Now, Westport is booming with tourism. What happened was, we had a great town council. You could be Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour, Sinn Féin, it didn’t matter. Everyone worked together and that’s why you’ve such a vibrant town today.

I’ve done the wedding carriage business for 17 or 18 years around Mayo, Sligo and Galway. Three years ago, I started horse-drawn carriage rides around the town centre in the tourist season and that’s worked out well.

Both our sons Padraic and Sean live locally. Padraig, Valerie and my grandaughters, Ailise and Maille, live next door in Drummindoo, where we built our house 22 years ago, and Padraic runs the Wild Atlantic Way trail ride and horsemanship courses.

I travelled the 32 counties of Ireland to meet up with stakeholders and certainly did our best to regalvanise shows

The first Westport Horse Show was held in 1967 and the idea behind it was to promote Westport as a tourist destination. June King and I are the two remaining founder members. The committee felt it was too costly to run the show in the grounds of Westport House. It would have cost roughly IR£1,400 in 1989 – that was a lot of money then. The Horse Fair Committee got around me to run the show here in 1990 and it’s been here since.

I’ve been involved with the Irish Shows Association (ISA) since 1992 and chair of the ISA western region for 16 years, until I resigned this year.

It was a great honour to be the national president, (2002, 2003). Liam Meade was the previous president when foot-and-mouth disease had cancelled all shows. I travelled the 32 counties of Ireland to meet up with stakeholders and certainly did our best to regalvanise shows.

Ring-side saviour

Now we’ve had shows cancelled again this year with the coronavirus. Shows will have to creep back again to what they were but it’s going to be very tough.

First and foremost, will they be able to get sponsorship? We’re in very unprecedented times. Shows need to sit down, take stock and decide to run on the budget they have. The easiest thing is to get into debt and nobody is going to thank you for it. Shows need to be viable.

Manpower is a problem. Neighbouring shows can liaise, say Louisburgh and Westport, get five people from one show to help out at the other’s show.

The lifeline for shows in recent years was the funding from the Department of Rural and Community Development. The minister at the time was our local TD Michael Ring and the way that funding happened was very simple.

I might even judge at a few shows, should the need arise

I was out at Louisburgh Show and Michael was there for the official opening. He asked how shows were going and I said they could do with help. We had two follow-up meetings, Michael Hughes was the ISA secretary then and we went to Dublin for that second meeting.

Due to Patsy’s health, I felt I had to scale down this year. I will not abandon shows and I hope to go to a few shows in 2021. I enjoyed my time on the ISA and I made many friends over the years. I might even judge at a few shows, should the need arise.

I attended a few ISA meetings on Zoom throughout lockdown. It was difficult, but, as they say, you must adapt. I have learnt a lot about technology this year, thanks to my granddaughters.

I would like to wish the ISA board all the best going forward and thank them for their kind words at my resignation.

Paddy Joe Foy was in conversation with Susan Finnerty.