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The Great Fair of Ballinasloe |
| Section: LIFE / TRAVEL |
| Author: Steenie Harvey |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 10/1/1994 |
| Size: 3,131 Words, 18,657 Characters |
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"Go east for a woman, go west for a horse." No trophies for guessing which part of that old Irish adage still holds true today. Each autumn, those with a passion for all things equine journey into Ireland's far west, to Ballinasloe town in county Galway For this is the site of the Great October Fair--the oldest, the biggest, and almost certainly the liveliest horse fair in Europe.
The first Sunday of October, the frantic opening day of the fair, found me wondering if it were possible to actually drown in horses. From the natural balcony of Dunlo Hill, Ballinasloe's forty-acre Fair Green resembled a tempestuous, surging sea. Not dozens, not hundreds, but thousands of mares, stallions, and wobbly-legged foals were down there awaiting new owners. Guesstimates of the actual numbers range...
. . .
...hter to meet a prospective bridegroom at the fair. However, things didn't go quite according to plan. At the end of the day, the merchant still had an unbetrothed daughter and was without the pony and trap that had carried them there. "Your man preferred the horse to the daughter, y'see." An apocryphal tale maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it. Not in Ireland. And especially not at Ballinasloe.
(806 of 18,657 characters)
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