EIRE: Sassenach Shindig

Under a fickle Irish sky, 152,000 people, including hunting types from a dozen lands, queued up at the bars and lounged beside the laurel bushes and lobelia borders of suburban Ballsbridge for Dublin’s annual International Horse Show. The British visitors were happy to be in a land where prime beef and mutton were to be had for the asking (plus a deal of cash), and cheerfully paid as much as $200 weekly for a furnished flat within neighing distance of the grounds.

Most Dubliners, regarding the show as a mere Sassenach shindig, stayed away. Some attended for a side attraction: “We go for the cigarets,” said a Dubliner, who explained that tobacco was short in town, and the horse show was the sort of place where smokes might be handed round.

On the final day President Sean O’Kelly and his wife Phyllis drove into the grounds in an open landau, surrounded by an elegant escort of blue-&-gold uniformed hussars. Two of the horses pulling the landau, unnerved by the excitement of the occasion, reared, almost overturned the landau, broke loose and dashed off. The hussars scattered. Dubliners considered this incident alone made the show a success. When Eire’s No. 1 Army band (conducted by a German) played God Save the King!, Eamon de Valera smiled sourly as he stood at attention in what used to be the royal box. Whether he liked it or not the British team won the big event, the international military jumping contest.