Walk In The Park: Irish Horses (and friends)

The grace of God is found

between the saddle and the ground.

~ Irish saying

I am not a horse person. Horses frighten me. In 60+ years I have been on one horse (with my grandfather) and one pony (at a cousin's birthday party).

Now, don't get me wrong. I think horses are beautiful and amazing creatures, but I would never want to own one (and am perfectly happy appreciating them from a safe distance).

That being said, I do have dear friends and family members who are horse people. One of them asked me to take photos of horses for her. And, because she asked, I noticed the horses more than I would have had she not.

Here they are, along with my stories of them. [There will be a few non-horses in here too. I do have one friend in Ireland, but he's not a horse.]

Bunratty, County Clare:

Patricia, our landlady, let me know there were horses just down the road. And I found them.

On one side of the road I found this mare and foal. When we returned 2 weeks later they were gone, perhaps moved to another field.

On the other side of the road was a larger field and a small herd of horses. They were also in the field when we returned to Bunratty for our last night (it is 20 minutes from the airport). We cut up apples we had left over from our lunches with a plan to treat the horses, but they would not come back to the gate. So, we left the apples on top of the concrete gatepost. When we walked by about an hour later the apples were gone.

Note this bend in the gate.

On our last day in Ireland they met us at the gate.

It was almost as if they knew we had apples left in our packs. So we made a special trip to retrieve the apples, but the horses were out in the field and waited until we walked away to enjoy their treat.

Doolin, County Clare:

Found this horse grazing in a field on a hazy day. It you look in the distance you can see the coastline, cliffs and Atlantic.

Beautiful!

Achill Island, County Mayo:

Claremorris, County Mayo:

Some animals did not want their photo taken.

Inishnee, Roundstone, County Galway:

Often when we were on a hike or visiting some site or other, we had time just to grab a photo and go. I almost missed this horse because the plants were so high around it.

Connemara National Park, Letterfrack, County Galway:

This freaked us all out. We all stopped and wondered what we should do. It looked and felt like something was wrong.

We could see the foal was breathing, but...

We were all relieved to read this notice. Apparently they often have visitors freaking out at the resting foals. One woman in our party went back just before we were due on the bus to make sure. The foal was up and walking around.

Coole Lake, Coole Park, County Galway:

The lake at Coole Park is a turlough.* Its level is dependent more on rain than on the small stream that feeds it as well. While we had a few days of decent rain and the lake level rose significantly in a week, horses are grazing here in what is actually part of the lake bottom. One of the folks we spoke with shared that there has been much discussion (disturbance?) about the horses grazing here.

Whether they are supposed to be here or not, they are lovely.

NOT HORSES

I teased my friend and sent her photos of donkeys via text message asking, "What kind of horses are these? I think she may have wondered about me for a minute or two.

Still, these wonderful animals deserve notice too.

Doolin, County Clare:

My friend, Joe. He was playing hard to get, but finally came to eat grass out of my hand. He would not come for the sugar cube I swiped from dinner. I left it on the wall (where I had left grass when he was being stubborn) and it was gone when I walked by again.

He's got "character." We've been flirting for a couple of years now.

These animals were pretty noisy.

See - mouthy creature. I often heard them when I was out walking.

This little creature was across the street from Killilagh and showed a great deal of interest when I took an early morning walk. It wandered over to the wall and climbed up on something, looking as if it was going to come over the wall. It didn't. I shared just a little bit of grass before it turned away.

Ballyvaughn, County Clare:

I was a little surprised to see these creatures grazing this narrow field by the harbor.

We had stopped to eat and then walked along the harbor road.

There you have it. It always amazes me how a comment can change the way you see a place. My wildflower photos still outnumber the horses (and donkeys), but the horses outnumber the frogs.

There were only a few shepherds at the first Bethlehem.

The ox and the donkey understood more

of the first Christmas

than the high priests in Jerusalem.

And it is the same today.

~ Thomas Merton

NOTES:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turlough_(lake)

No place for Cows and sheep...so here we go: