enRoute


	ENROUTE TV ENROUTE FM MEDIA KIT AIR CANADA LINKS WRITERS' GUIDELINES

LORD OF THE REINS
A greenhorn discovers the timeless countryside of Ireland's west coast.

Text: CRAIG TAYLOR

THE CONNEMARA TRAIL WINDS THROUGH THE KIND OF expansive Irish scenery that should, in fairness to the rest of the world, exist only in postcards. It passes the bridge where John Wayne's The Quiet Man was filmed. It crosses craggy mountains dotted with sheep and rolls through bogs where the earth bends with every step of the horse's hoof. During a six-day horseback ride along the Connemara Trail, there's plenty of time to reflect on all this beauty.

Unfortunately, on the first day of my own journey, all I can think about is the unrelenting pain. I am not a horseback rider. My equine encounters have been limited to trail rides on the sort of knobby-kneed pack horse that looks to be two steps away from heart failure. I was expecting a vague pain - saddle soreness - but what I'm experiencing on this first day is exquisite discomfort. Before I flew to Galway, an English friend had pulled me aside. "You know, the first few times a man rides a horse," he said cautiously, "it's like being hit repeatedly in the crotch with a cricket bat."

While misty Ireland unfolds around me, I bounce in my saddle and repeat to other riders in a taut voice that I'm "fine, just fine. Everything's fine." The tour is an international mix of riders from France, Germany, the United States and Canada, some of whom are dressed in immaculate jodhpurs and plastic-covered helmets. Jim from New Jersey makes the trip to Ireland each year to ride in Connemara. Halfway through day one, he has already adopted an honest concern for my safety.

"Do you know how to post?" he asks.

"How to host?" I reply.

"No, post," he says and demonstrates how to use the rhythm of the horse to lift and fall in the saddle. And thus begins my own amateur version of posting, the single most important discovery of the journey. The pain gradually takes on a more subtle tone, the fear of infertility subsides and Ireland's charm once again blossoms around me.

It's easy to see from the stark beauty of the land why Connemara was so fondly remembered by the masses who fled during the famines of the 19th century. All they left behind were the wrecked stone cottages that emerge, half-hidden by brush, as we ride past. In the distance, the Twelve Bens, Connemara's mountain range, stretches out.

Later that first day, down a path surrounded by dangling pines, we arrive at another relic of Connemara's past: Aughnanure Castle, a 16th-century tower house that sits on a jut of rock formed by the Drimmeen River. After clambering through in our damp gear, helmets in hand, our line of riders clip-clops on to Oughterard, a fishing town on the shores of Lough Corrib. Tourist season has just begun, and the pubs are full of visiting non-drinkers grimacing through pints of Guinness and listening for authentic Irish accents.

On day two, I stay near the back of our line of riders. Up front is Willie Leahy, who has run the Connemara Trail for 33 years and can handle a horse as effortlessly as most of us turn a doorknob. Willie is the legend the Connemara Trail ride is anchored around. Before he was a teenager he had already purchased his first horse, sold it for a 45-pound profit and bought another. Now, with over 300 horses in his stable, he looks the part of a weathered horseman. Everything Willie wears seems damp, from his corduroy riding pants and baggy sweater to his tan cowboy hat. And, thanks to years of training Irish ponies, his legs have become so bandy they look more suitable for dangling from a saddle than for walking.

When he's not attending to his horses, Willie is talking to the riders, especially the women. "You know, I would swim across the sea for a girl like you," he says to a young woman from Germany during one lunch stop. "Toss me in now. Toss me in! I'd be happy."

In the afternoon, our line of horses clips past more remnants of stone cottages. The clouds are never still, threatening one moment, meek and puffy the next. I'm riding Gorsey, an eight-year-old whose namesake grows in clumps around the roads. When we pause, Gorsey swings his head over to take a mouthful of gorse, chewing methodically until I gently nudge him on. Connemara ponies are known for their gentle disposition. In the 16th century, the horses swam to shore after the Spanish Armada sank off the coast. Since life on the land was a bitter uphill struggle, the horses of the area adapted, hauling whatever the farmers could jam into the baskets, or creels, on their backs.

more >