Recalling a time in Irish rural life when man and horse worked in unison

MARK McGAUGH, a staunch Mayo man from Ballycurran, Headford (postal), put pen to paper in recalling an era of Irish life during the ‘40s and ‘50s, when man and horse came together to ‘break the soil’ in springtime for the planting of the crops. His story, The Ploughman, is one of a number included in a new book entitled Around the Garden Gate Collection just published.

BY the time I left Ireland for foreign shores, the tractor had commenced to gradually replace the horse as the preferred method of ploughing and carrying out lots of other farm related work, but I will add that we did not have a tractor on our land at the time of my departure in January, 1960.

So it does not surprise me when I think of the days I spent on the farm, that my memory recalls the time I spent with the horse ploughing, harrowing, drilling, and scuffling the beet. We were part of a team with the horse playing the leading role, and a working relationship was established which was based on trust, kindness, and the will and desire to finish the job in hand.

Perhaps it is in the springtime from March/April onwards when those visions were most crystallised, and among the memories is the first ploughing day of spring. I pictured the cold morning air when the horses were taken from the stables, and they almost appeared to be looking forward to the day’s work ahead. They were alert and frisky with their heads held high, and the sparkle on their coats gave the impression that they are eagerly awaiting the task of ploughing the land.

There was an age difference in the two horses, with Fanny barely two years old, and she had only been broken in the previous autumn, while Blackie was an experienced six-year-old who had done every job expected from him on the farm. These tasks included pulling the common and spring harrow once the field was ploughed, the smaller plough for drilling the field where the various seeds would be sown at a later date. The horse’s work was seldom finished as throughout the spring and summer and into the autumn the horse was always in demand.

One clear memory I have is from the first ploughing of the spring time when there might be still some slight frost on the ground. There was a great deal of preparation to be done beforehand. The old Pearce manufactured plough had to be prepared, with both wheels being oiled, the cross checked, with a touch of paint added to give the impression to the neighbours that it was a very useful and important piece of equipment.

The horses employed might be Clydesdale or Suffolk, but they also required some serious preparation for the long hard days ahead. We had a blacksmith named John Molloy in the village who had carried on the traditions of his father and grandfather before him, of turning long metal rods of iron into properly fitting shoes for the horses in the local villages, and many a happy hour I spent pulling the bellows in order to get the necessary heat up for the making of the shoes.

I recall the aroma when ‘the smithy’ first tested the red hot steel on the horse’s hooves to ascertain the correct fitting. The properly fitted steel shoes were essential for the horses to get a grip on the soft soil as they trudged along turning the deep heavy soil onto its side. The ploughing was normally done in co-operation with another relative or more often with a neighbour as very few farmers had more than one horse, and two horses were needed to pull the heavy plough.