So, I went to see this man about a donkey ...

Terry Eagleton had always wanted a donkey. Finally, after weeks of searching, he went to buy one from an Irish farmer. But instead of returning in the saddle, he came home in an ambulance

It happened on the day I went to see a man about a donkey. In Ireland, where I live, donkeys are nowadays purely decorative, having long since been overtaken by the diesel engine. For me, however, their pointlessness simply adds to their modest, moth-eaten charm, so when I was offered one as a birthday present by my partner I was delighted to accept. They are, however, notoriously hard creatures to come by, even in a country where they have been in constant use since Roman times. (Part of their usefulness in Ireland comes from the fact that they put their feet down in a way that creates a gliding motion effective on bog land.) So I took to scouring the advertisements in the agricultural press, familiarising myself with jargon as esoteric as literary theory: "Quiet brown four-year-old for sale, running with jack and filly foal at foot."

After a few fruitless weeks, I began to wonder whether I might have to join a party of donkey adopters on a trip to some Chinese orphanage. We might have to promise not to give our beasts western, imperial-sounding names, and allow them to nurture their roots in their indigenous donkey culture.

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