Horse Shows opens at RDS despite civil unrest around the country
Dublin, 16 August 1922 – Despite the violent unrest currently prevailing in the country, the Dublin Horse Show opened yesterday to large crowds.
The attendance came largely from the farming and land-owning community, as well as horse breeders, representatives from the new Irish army and visitors from Britain and France.
It was notable that approximately 80% of the horses on show at Ballsbridge had journeyed from Leinster and Ulster where the disruption to transport links due to the civil war is less evident than in the south and west of the country. Taking into account the wider circumstances, a number of exhibitors took the precaution of travelling to Dublin earlier than usual.
Edward Bohane, director of the Royal Dublin Society, paid tribute to the determination of breeders and exhibitors to ‘carry on’ in the face of exceptional circumstances, most obviously the disruptions that have been caused to the railways.
Overall, the number of entries for 1922 is higher than 1921 – 771 versus 696 – and additional work has been done to the showgrounds to accommodate an extra 5,000 spectators; gone is the sloping grass bank and in its place now is a terrace from where visitors can view the entirety of the ring without having to crane their necks to follow the action.
In addition to the action in the enclosure, the countryside exhibition was bigger than last year and involved workers from all over Ireland demonstrating their skills.
The exhibition of Irish art was originally organised to be part of Aonach Tailteann and featured water colours, oil paintings, stained glass window work, wood-carving, enamels, metal work, posters, glass, steel work, pottery and porcelain. ‘The paintings in particular were both fresh and original in treatment and essentially Irish’, one newspaper reviewer noted this morning.
The horse show will continue today, but owing to the death of Arthur Griffith, the programme of events has been re-arranged so that the RDS show-grounds will remain closed until 2pm.
Pictures of Mr Griffith have been hung in the Central Hall and the RDS flag was flown at half-mast.
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
