FESTIVALS AND EVENTS: The Borris Fair is an annual mix of goods to sell, goods to buy, horses and religious nick-nacks. Michael Parsonstook it all in, along with a dose of good cheer and the fine aroma of curried chips
SWINE FLU is for wimps. At the Borris Fair, hard chaws spat on their hands before shaking on a deal. The south Co Carlow village in the foothills of Mount Leinster claims to have Ireland’s longest main street, and on Saturday its vertiginous mile was lined with stalls set up by Traveller families from across the country.
The fair, held annually on August 15th — the Feast of the Assumption — reputedly dates from the days when Shakespeare was writing sonnets and the virgin queen, Elizabeth I, nominally ruled Ireland. But forget merrie Tudor pageantry; this was more like Electric Picnic for the Traveller community.
Handsome young bucks in Marlon Brando singlets paraded prized piebalds. Fake-tanned girls in gravity-defying hemlines pouted like glamour-models awaiting a Heatmagazine photoshoot.
Fearless little boys strutted with the panache of Bugsy Malone toughs and handled the horses with uncanny expertise.
A matriarch “from Offaly” said what she loved about the fair was “tradition”. A man “from Kilkenny” said he’d come for “d’aul ponies, like, and the culture”.
A loudspeaker played the songs of Kaley Ward – the Travellers' Dolly Parton – who's "huge in Galway". Carlow's Dylan, folk singer Richie Kavanagh, who's responsible for, among other songs, Aon Focal Eile, Mickey's Buckin' Assand Do You Really Love Your Mammy, has accurately captured the essence of the place.
He’s penned a ditty – best appreciated sober – in honour of the fair where “there’s all kinds of tinkers, dalers [sic] an’ conmen”.
Punters “lookin’ for a jackass, a puckaun or a pony” had ample flesh to press and there was no shortage of consumer durables. Traders claimed, with no great conviction, that business was good. They weren’t quite selling “made-in-Rathkeale” wooden replicas of Our Lady of the Stump, but all manner of religious gew-gaws — from Padre Pio clocks and guardian angel bracelets to lurid grave ornaments — were on display.
Star buys included Chanel boots, clearly designed by Coco the clown, rather than the French couturier; and Arabian Nights outfits for little princesses by “Al-Qara Hussein”, which wouldn’t look out of place in Baghdad’s Sadr City.
Joe from Longford was one of many stall holders selling alarmingly authentic “toy” guns from China. “They’re great for the kids,” he remarked. The packaging advised: “Do not shoot at humans or animals — for over-18 use only.”
The air was pungent with the scent of curry chips and steaming piles of dung. There wasn’t a Killarney horse-nappy in sight.
There should’ve been porter, porter everywhere but there wasn’t a drop to drink. All the pubs were closed — an Irish solution to an Irish problem that dare not speak its name. However, everyone remained doggedly cheerful, stoical and courteous. Even the weather was “agin’ ‘em”. But then, after an overnight drenching, the sun came out at last. As did the tattoos.
One man had his headscarfed mother, Biddy, engraved on a tanned shoulderblade. while women with arms like Kenny Egan’s favoured the dagger-through-the-heart motif.
As the fair came to close a first-time visitor, Irish-American tourist, Joseph Carey (43) from New Jersey, whose father had emigrated “from Templetuohy, Co Tipperary”, described the fair as “unique – one of a kind”.
