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1. The Great Horse Fairs of Bartlemy

   

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   About two hundred years ago there was a horse and sheep fair started near Bartlemy village about four miles from Watergrasshill. It was held on two days, the fourth and nineteenth of September each year. It deloloped into the biggest fair in Munster, it was a holiday all over the district. If farmers had corn ripe they could not get anybody to bind it. (There were no reapers and binders then). There were three fields taken up with the fair, one for sheep in pins and in horse and jennet cribs and the next field was for horses on sale and tents, and third was the galloping field for horses that were bought to be passed sound by the veterinary surgeons.
   There were fifteen to twenty tents. All the people of the district, old and young came there to dance, principally. Irish step dancing. They looked on those two fair days as the greatest events of the year.
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   Note: These once famous Horse fairs are no more. During the past dozen years they have been gradually fading out and this year (1937) not a solitary buyer attended. So that one may say that the fair has died this Year. 1937
   D. McCarthy
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   Further Note: The above note was rather premature. In the year 1938. Another attempt was made by an influential local Committee to revive this once famous fixture & it met with a very fair measure of success.

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. activities
      1. economic activities
         1. trade
            1. buying and selling (~3,622)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Peggy Sarsfield

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Skahanagh South, Co. Cork

   Informant

   Mrs Sarsfield

   Relation

   Parent

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Ballyready, Co. Cork