Breakfast The Night Before: Recollections of an Irish Horse Dealer

by Marjorie Quarton

This sparkling memoir gives a personal view of Irish rural life from the Economic War of the 1930s to the farming boom and recession of the 1970s. It describes the upbringing of a Protestant only child on a farm near Nenagh in north Tipperary-an idyll interrupted by school in Dublin during the 1940s. Taking over the farm on her father’s death, working the land and animals (dogs, sheep, horses, cattle), the author recounts with great humour, acuity and poignancy her dealings, from the age of seventeen, at fairs throughout the country-Limerick, Kilrush, Cahirmee, Thurles, Ballinasloe, Spancilhill, Clonmel-a lone woman in a man’s world. With rare brio and eye for character, incident and idiosyncrasy, Quarton lovingly documents a world of country people, eccentric relatives, home cures and recipes, and unaffected living. Breakfast the Night Before is both entertaining and enduring.

Genres: Memoir

214 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2001

Reviews

[Clare O'Beara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this read. Marjorie grew up with horses and early became a horse dealer, and in those slow-paced days that sometimes meant walking and riding half through the night in order to get to a town with a horse fair. Once there she had no time to stop and eat so she had to have had her breakfast the night before.

She talks of learning to ask if a mare could be in foal, and of the dodgy horses brought from sale to sale in the hope of selling to a newcomer. The Swiss Army at the time liked to buy Irish horses as every soldier (service was compulsory for men) went home after a few years with his horse and his rifle. The Irish hunters were strong enough for the mountains. Black horses only were bought by these buyers and they wanted the mane and tail cut very short at the market. So if you saw a black horse with short mane and tail for sale elsewhere it meant the Swiss had rejected it.

Plenty more such information, great characters and lively scenes make this a good read for anyone who wants a look at the past in Ireland.