Shelter in day-long demand on Horse Fair Day

THE day of the Castleisland Horse Fair 2019 will go down as anything but a grand day for the drying. It was as opposite as you could imagine. Indeed, the reflections on the rain glazed streets and paths looked about 10 feet deep.

However, a man who seemed to know his stuff said that there was some serious money made and spent in the course of the weather shortened day.

Shelter of all kinds was sought out as people dashed from post to pillar and the greyness of the day was broken only by a constant stream of multi-coloured umbrellas. It was the kind of day on which you wouldn’t see the Market House from Hartnett’s Corner and vice-versa.

The Met Éireann Status Yellow warning on Thursday afternoon probably kept all but the diehards from coming to Castleisland as it was one of the smallest, shortest fairs in recent years.

Even by mid afternoon there was a lot of packing up and heading

away going on whereas, last year there was little or no sign of anything stirring until the pealing of The Angelus and the dipping of the sun put it in their heads.

The man who knows his stuff also pointed out that there was a noticeable increase in the quality of animal at Friday’s fair compared to that of the most recent years.

Things and side events which seemed to come to light in the sun-filled fair days weren’t as obvious or not there at all on Friday.

The easy tripping from pub to pub and lolloping around the streets while meeting and chatting with friends and neighbours in obliging conditions was also missing. You’d be forgiven for thinking that it was a day like Friday that inspired the lyrics of The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow for the musical Annie.

We’ll look to 2020 while embracing the lines of the song and the hope it inspires in this and so many other fields of much sadder realities.

Photo by John Reidy Umbrellas everywhere and only the diehards hanging on at Friday’s November 1 Horse Fair Day in Castleisland.