Category: Livestock

This just in from our friend and occasional contributor Danny Hunter out and about in Dublin admiring the agricultural biodiversity on show in a local market.

I walked one minute up the road to the Smithfield Horse Market and was surprised at how big a concern it was. There were horses, ponies and donkeys of all sorts. It was chaotic and pretty much unmanaged. Largely run by and catering for the Traveller community. At one stage there was a bare knuckle fist fight between two brothers apparently. If you missed that you could always go to the van selling videos which had a wide range of DVDs of all sorts of family members, friends and foes slugging it out (among the many road races the Travellers organise in various places). Kids as young as 12 years old were buying and selling! While it is always lovely to be around horses and get some nice shots it all seemed a bit brutal and sad. I liked the scene of the guy with crash helmet and shetland pony walking through the market. After a few hours of sweet fresh horse dung I set off on the Luas for the fresh lungs of Bray and did the 10km coast walk to Greystones.