An ‘ingrained optimism’ that accepts every day as it comes (October 1966)
Although most Irish fairs were but a memory, American, Swiss, German and English pony enthusiasts had made the annual event at Maam Cross in Co Galway, one of the biggest and best known sales in Ireland, reported Farming Life in 1966.
A represented Farming Life had been among the visitors at the fair in the heart of Connemara.
They wrote: “For Connemara ponies, hardy, and docile – a breed that was threatened with extinction a few years ago – are being exported to many countries overseas.
“And at the Maam Cross fair, in the heart of Connemara, top quality foals were snapped up at high prices.”
Fillies of only a few months made from £70 to over £100. A yearling made £150.
Colt foals of attractive breeding fetched up to £90; others went for around £30 and a number of them were bought by Northern Ireland dealers.
Many of the top fillies were eventually destined to go overseas when they are two-year-olds, “the popular age for shipping”.
The correspondent added: “So keen is the demand for choice fillies that many were bought before the fair by dealers who toured the small mountain farms on which they are reared.”
In contrast of the booming trade for ponies the Connemara farmers were feeling the punch of the poor demand for cattle which was general both north and south.
To the small farmers of rugged Connemara where they had to work hard to eke out a living at the best of times the outlook was bleak. Many of them depended on money made from their cattle.
Bullocks which commanded £70 in 1965 were difficult to sell at even £50. Good suckled calves, Aberdeen Angus and Herefords, were only fetching £13 compared with £30 in October 1965.
Farming Life's correspondent noted: “Some of the farmers were not even “bid money” for their stock. It was the same for sheep.”
Apart from the pony boom in Connemara there was another “joy” and consolation – the good summer had enabled them to save their hay crop and there was plenty of turf to keep the home fires burning.
And so many of them refused to part with their cattle at “give away” prices.
The Farming Life correspondent concluded: “Yes, the kindly Connemara people have an 'ingrained' optimism that accepts every day as it comes. And as they left this fair for their homes they cast proud eyes on the Twelve Pins which crown this rugged grandeur - the mountains provided an entrancing picture in the fading autumn sunshine.”