Over 50,000 spectators attend four-day Dublin Horse Show

Dublin, 18 August 1923 - The Dublin Horse Show, which yesterday drew to a close, attracted 51,932 spectators to the RDS showgrounds in Ballsbridge across its four days. Among those present during the week was the Governor General, Mr. T. M. Healy, who visited in his official capacity. 

This year’s attendance was up significantly on that 1922 and up only slightly on that for 1920, However, it falls below the 55,160 who attended the Horse Show in the summer of 1921, shortly after the conclusion of the truce in the Anglo-Irish War.

The largest attendance to date remains, however, the 66,167 that attended in 1897. As ever, the appeal of Horse Show was the breadth of its attractions, which encompass business, sport, fashion, exhibitions, lectures and music recitals.

The scale of the offering made an impression on, amongst others, visiting journalists from across the Irish Sea. ‘To give a comprehensive idea of the show’, a reporter for the Daily Sketch noted, ‘one has to imagine six of the biggest London season fixtures, including Derby and Oaks days, merged into one. Even acute politics are forgotten at this Horse Show Week, which, though different, is a revival of the great Dublin festival of the past.’

Between 1868 and 1880 the annual horse shows were held on the lawn in front of Leinster House, since when the venue has been the RDS’s show yard in Ballsbridge which covers an expanse of forty acres, on which approximately nine acres of fully equipped buildings are situated. see also the official programme of the event.

A general view of the huge crowd in the enclosure at the Horse show (Image: Irish Life, September 1923)

[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.]