Deprived Dublin areas have gone horse-mad over the last few years. One time, kids asked Santy for Power Rangers or Cindy; suddenly they want horses - for birthdays, for Christmas, even for Holy Communion. Nobody's quite sure from where it sprung. The travellers traditionally owned most but nothing like the current estimated 3,000 urban horses.
Nobody cares where it came from anyway. In communities like Ballymun, bent low by unemployment and heroin, the phenomenon was a godsend. For the parents it meant no needles, no cars, no crime; for the kids, freedom.
It was a brilliant story which practically told itself: "ghetto" children astride noble steeds against a grainy canvas of tower blocks, drugs and urban deprivation. Topped off with a pinch of class conflict - in the form of middle-class evangelists from the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, saying the kids were abusing the horses - it was practically served on a plate.
The international media descended in droves. Channel Four commissioned a documentary called Urban Cowboys and then made another series of its own.
A photographer for Vogue did a series of portraits and called it "Pony Kids". Camera crews, journalists and photographers came from France, America, Scandinavia. Suddenly, the world was taking an interest in their communities for the right reasons; because there was something good there, something to be proud of.
But it couldn't last forever; that much fun doesn't come free. The horse owners are now learning that with power comes responsibility. With the advent of new horse control laws, it appears that the sun is setting on the urban cowboys.
Under the provisions of the The Control of Horses Act, 1996, which comes into effect in Dublin city and county this month, all horses will have to be licensed at a cost of £25, and identifiable by an implanted microchip tag. Nobody is arguing with that much.
Where the death-knell sounds is in the licence requirements. Horses must kept in stables that meet rigorous standards and their owners must be at least 16 years old. Horses not meeting those requirements will be impounded and held until a licence is produced. If that doesn't happen, the horse will be put down.
The Corporation will start rounding up unlicensed horses straight away and the pounds will be filled to capacity until the problem is eradicated, according to Declan Wallace, assistant principal officer at the Corporation's Community and Environment Department. The Department of Agriculture has earmarked £2 million to implement the Act, of which Dublin will get the biggest share. Tenders have been invited for a third horse pound, which will boost the total capacity in the city to about 150 animals.
He agrees that the majority of current owners won't be able to meet the licence requirements, but said it is not corporation's role to "pander to what has built up over the years". One in five complaints to his office are about wandering horses, he said, and they are "impractical pets" in built-up areas.
"We don't have the land to build houses, let along cater for horses. Next week, the pet of the month could be elephants or crocodiles. Do we have to provide facilities for them?
"There's a myth that there's a huge tradition of horses in Dublin. Eighty five per cent of people bought them because they are cheap and good craic. The horses are mistreated, they damage property and are a danger to children. This law is aimed at making horse ownership fair on the horse."
There's no doubt that regulation is badly needed. The DSPCA campaigned vigorously for the introduction of the horse laws and their vocal spokesperson, Therese Cunningham, has few friends in horse circles.
In one memorable scene from Urban Cowboys, she is seen in an animated argument with the Ballymun Horse Owners at the Smithfield Horse Fair. She hasn't been back there since someone hit her on the head with a horseshoe while she was speaking to a reporter.
Vicky McElligott set up the Ballymun Horse Owners' Association, a group of parents which took over a local burned-out building and converted it into make-shift stables for their children. "Anyone who doesn't have horses can't identify with us," she said. "They have no idea of the kind of contact and healing you can get from an animal like that. A horse is not mechanically driven. It takes love and care and education and responsibility for a young person to grow with it." She can't deny that wandering horses have wreaked havoc in parts of Ballymun. They have eaten shrubs. They're a danger to small children. They clean out their bowels at inopportune moments and in inopportune places, and occasionally they stray onto the roads and get themselves knocked down.
"It's like the Wild West," a local Dublin Corporation Regional Development Officer, Brendan Kenny, said. "The horses have caused horrendous damage and a lot of fear. The majority of people don't want them at all. At every meeting I go to, there are two things people are concerned about: drugs and horses." It's true there is cruelty to horses, 14-year-old Danno Murphy from Ballymun said. "I know kids that jockeyed their horses every day until they went like a rasher. Then they'd have to get the vet out for a worm dose. But I looked after my mare every day, cleaning out her stable and feeding her."
Danno recently sold his mare, which he says was a "poxy" decision because now there's nothing to do except hang around the house or buy a car from the travellers and rally it around the fields with his mates.
He won't touch drugs though, and said that he and his friends are copped on, "not like the zombies you see around the place, walking around in the middle of the summer with big jackets on them". He knows only too well that it's bad news. His 18-yearold brother died of an overdose earlier this year.
"Horses are all we have to keep us out of trouble," 13-year-old Tricia Dorman said. She hasn't got a horse of her own, but borrows her neighbour's and brushes the horse down for him afterwards. "I've been thinking of getting a horse, but I know it'll be taken off me. The Government needs to give us a chance to show that we do know how to look after them. They don't know what the horses do for people around here."
Most of the horse trading in Dublin takes place at the Smithfield Horse Fair, in the small, cobbled-stoned square just off the Liffey quays. A modern office complex is currently being built on the site of the old Jameson distillery which takes up one side of the square.
City planners hope to turn Smithfield into a leafy, airy, town square bordered by cafes that serve good cappucino. The presence of a smelly, noisy monthly horse fair doesn't quite fit in with such plans.
It's not the first time the Corporation has tried to shut it down. But the new horse laws will probably do the job. If there's no demand for these horses then the market will collapse, and with it the horse fair.