Connemara Mollie: An Irish Journey On Horseback

Ireland on Horseback #1

by Hilary Bradt

An account of a journey through western Ireland made in 1984 that centres on the growing bond between the author and her Connemara pony and the many challenges they face before the tragic conclusion in the mountains of Kerry. It is a portrait of rural Ireland, built up from conversations with local people. The journey takes them through Counties Galway, Mayo, Clare and Kerry, the obstacles to their progress ranging from bogs, stone walls, and the River Shannon. "I've never tried hitchhiking with a horse before" comments the author. "It's not easy." She travelled with no set route.

Genres: Travel, Ireland, Nonfiction

147 pages, Paperback

First published July 7, 2012

Reviews

[Katy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit of a random selection off the library shelves because I happened to be stood near the travel writing section. In the early 80s, Hilary was working as a tour guide, but needed a new adventure after the break up of her marriage. She didn't have the confidence of when she was younger and went back-packing around the world on her own, so was looking for a safer destination, and had always fancied doing an extensive pony trek, so in 1984, she bought a Connemara pony, called Mollie, and set out on her own to trek several hundred miles around the western side of Ireland, starting near Galway and finishing, at least in this book, by Dingle Bay in Kerry. It's taken her almost 30 years to publish the story, although a first draft sat in a box in the attic for most of that time, and this one came out last year and there's a sequel coming out later this year - she recently revisited some of the people and places. It sounds like an interesting experience, but overall I thought the book was lacking in any emotion to really help you engage with the characters involved. It looks like she's used to writing books of useful information to tell people where to go and what to see while they're there, and not anything with a personal reaction - the book was published by her own travel guide company, and I'm not sure any other publishing house would have sent it out without considerable rewriting. I'm unlikely to even remember it by the time the sequel comes out, never mind go to any effort to seek it out. In a conversation on FB over the last few days about 80s films, The Neverending Story came up, and I made some mention of the scene with the horse in the swamp - I then started reading this today, and she has an actual real occurrence of a white horse getting stuck in an Irish bog - and it left me totally unmoved! She wrote about her own relief when the horse got out, but it just didn't translate to the page. Oh, and her description of 1980s Ireland being just like a third world country would probably offend anyone who lived there. It passed a train journey, but I'm unlikely to recommend it to anyone else.

[Jake Marrinan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice short read. For me, the book lacks depth and description. I'd like to hear more about what Hilary saw and how she felt on this journey. However I understand the book was written a long time after she actually made the trip.

I'd recommend it as an easy read for someone who may be interested in Ireland, particularly West Ireland. I did enjoy the descriptions of Hilary's encounters with people along the way.

[Debbi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spoiler Alert



The book was an easy, short read. Having just recently returned from a vacation in Ireland I was enjoying reading about the places I had visited and thinking how amazing it would have been seeing it on horseback. However, as a horse owner I was furious by the end of the book that she was so reckless with her horse. My heart breaks for Mollie. What a horrific death!

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Two stars for the first 4 chapters about preparing for the trip. The rest of the book is: I rode, I courageously asked a farmer to sleep in a field; I caught Mollie in the morning. Repeat. Spoiler! This Irish journey on horseback ends when Mollie falls off a cliff and dies. She ends by saying she came back to finish the journey on another horse and stay tuned for book 2. Nope.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the story to be enthralling. I was prepared for the ending, but still ...

[Ronan Doyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a mixed bag here: Bradt's got a cavalier approach that might easily turn up travel lit gold, and her sense of humour happily pastes over much of the mishap adventures that befall her. At the same time, there's a passivity to the trek that had me wondering just what the point was. There's not much in the way of a well-articulated reason to her journey, little understanding of the communities she passes through, no personal narrative to pin things on beyond an intrepid sense of adventure. At times that's enough.

[Teresa]

Can't rate this book because I wish I didn't enjoy the writing and most of the book as much as I did. I had fallen in love with Mollie and loved reading about her adventures with her rider Hilary Bradt. But then a monumentally arrogant, self-serving act of ignorance on Hilary's part brought the book crashing about my reading head and I literally hated the harrowing, awful end of this story. I'm sorry but if you truly love horses you would never even contemplate taking them somewhere that is known to be so dangerous especially when you are inexperienced trekking on your own and have been warned not to do it. And all so that you could fulfill your own self-indulgent need for 'adventure' - what? travelling through a small part of Ireland and just so you could avoid having to go a little way by road. You cannot humanize a horses experience, you dragged that poor animal away from the comfort of its 'herd' instinct and made it an instrument of your own personal wants and desires and you failed it.
However, it is not for me to judge another human and the poor decisions we all make but I only hope that we come to a point when we understand what we ask of these poor creatures. And I have to say that I would read her next book despite my deep hatred of part of this one.

[Jane Wilson-Howarth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Connemara Mollie is a gentle amble through Hilary Bradt’s early years and on into the rain-lashed lushness of the emerald isle. I loved the image Bradt created for me with “green roads” and “rocky, gale-swept Connemara [where] a few hunch-backed trees leant away from the prevailing wind.” It is a poignant portrait of the close relationship of trust and affection that develops between horse and rider, and which (like all close relationships) can career between love and occasionally almost hate, as frustrations, discomforts, fears and hunger are shared. Unexpectedly for me, this book continued a couple of powerful themes of the last travel book I’ve read: Between Extremes, which also involves some serious horsing about.

[L Tossey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sigh. Have always wanted to do a trip like this, and enjoyed the ride reading this - literally and figuratively. But, the downfall of true stories is that life is unpredictable and the ending was both heartbreaking and swift. I wish it had gone a bit further, provided some more reflection or more of a peek of what was to come after, since it's mentioned that the journey does indeed continue. I plan on reading the next book, but will need a little time before I do so...