What the original coaches lacked in neatness they made up in pace. It was no uncommon thing to see a team brought out to attach to a coach, one blinded with a rubber, two with twitches on their noses, and the fourth having his leg tied up till the moment of departure. I once started from Waterford under these circumstances, and when all was ready, at the moment of starting, the coachman having climbed up, with his rope reins in hand, began shouting, cheering, and rattling his feet against the footboard to make them start. On this I reminded him that his whip was lying on the top of the luggage behind him.
“Oh, bad luck to ’em! I wouldn’t show ’em that till they’d ask for it,” was the answer “Sure they’d never lave home if they thought I’d take that along wid me.”
They did start, with the vocal assistance of half the spalpeens of the city, who followed us barefooted for at least a mile—an Irish mile—out of the town.
There is no country in the world where so many clever horses are bred as in Ireland. I say clever in the general acceptation of the word, for an Irish horse is as great an adept at an argument with his driver as he is in the falling at once into the latter’s views, and performing all that he can expect from him with cheerfulness.
I have generally found in my experience that a horse with a bad temper is a good stayer; while, on the other hand, an animal with a little temper, easily got the better of, is a cur.
A horse in Ireland is never allowed to have a bad temper; he only rises to tricks.
I was driving in Dublin some time since to catch a boat, and the horse in the car, after being very refractory, lay down. I was very much incensed, and afraid of losing my passage, when the driver quietly said:
“Oh, don’t mind him, sir; it’s only tricks.”
Since the reign of Bianconi the travelling has very much improved. The long car, substituted for the coach, is by no means an uncomfortable carriage, and the weight being kept so near the ground reduces the chances of being upset to a minimum. The roads are extremely good, and the scenery in some parts indescribably beautiful.