FROM THE ARCHIVES:Modern suspicion and lack of trust meant that the fair of Banagher in 1866 was no longer like it had been in the good old days, according to this report. – JOE JOYCE
NOTWITHSTANDING the enormous charges made for accommodation of a very indifferent character, the town both on yesterday, and especially today, was full of strangers – some anxious to dispose of their living wares in order to meet the coming half-yearly gale [rent], others equally ready to turn that periodical crisis to their advantage, while not a few kept a good lookout for the Ballinasloe fair, where everything will, no doubt, be in greater abundance, and more remunerative prices, it is currently believed, will be expected.
Large, however, as was the attendance of buyers, I understand it was comparatively small to that noticed in years gone by. Time was, I was told, when the only hotel deserving of the name of which Banagher can boast, was found to accommodate as many as . . . 400 individuals, one half of whom, it is said, used to contrive to squeeze themselves into the sole sitting apartment in the house and the remainder to scatter themselves wherever standing room was available.
Nothing like that number could now be seen there . . . though reasons, no doubt, could be assigned for the change. In those good old days as the phrase goes, the custom was for as many sellers and buyers of horses to assemble at a given hour in the room referred to, and to appoint a chairman, whose special duty was to act as general, but honorary, auctioneer, and to take the bids of persons generally unknown to him, and for property that, as a rule, had not been even seen by the bidders.
It was a matter of ordinary occurrence, then, to place the most implicit reliance on the word of the owner, and, when the highest bid was made, to hand over the sum at which the horse, or, as oftentimes was the case, the horse with all the appurtenances, including open car, or tax cart, saddle, harness . . . were knocked down. Happily, or unhappily, this is an age of suspicion; money, too, is more scarce, and people have become more cautious – possibly wiser. Nowadays they dream not of trusting the mere statement of the seller of horse flesh; they even question their own experience and knowledge, and hesitate not to supplement both by professional and scientific skill. It is well, some may say, that this should be so; with perhaps not less reason the contrary may be asserted. [ . . . ]A good collection of horses put in an appearance on Saturday afternoon, but most of them had to return home, the transactions done being very limited . . . Last evening several sales were effected, but these were chiefly confined to colts, which it is stated were never known to be so numerous at Banagher, and they went freely at from £15 to £20. Today however, every one seemed disappointed, for notwithstanding that fully a good mile and more was covered by horses of every description, few amongst them, judges said, came up to expectations.