A few years ago a beer advert contentiously declared Ireland to be “Rugby Country”. This drew some sharp comments — and was regarded by many as a punt too far from the oval-ball aficionados who tend to run beer companies and greenlight advertising campaigns.
Horse Country (RTÉ One, Tuesday, 7pm) will prove less contentious. No grand claims are made for the equestrian industry: we are instead invited to merely spend time with ordinary people for whom horses mean everything. This is essentially a Nationwide segment blown up for silly-season summer programming. Yet it is none the poorer for that.
In Co Mayo we meet Liam Lynskey, who breeds Connemara ponies and Irish draught horses. “Both my grandfathers would have kept horses,” he says wistfully, explaining that horses are more than a business or pastime. They connect him to his past and to his family.
Over in Co Kildare we are introduced to Cathal Daniels, one of Ireland’s top showjumpers (in the three-day event) and his girlfriend, Jenny Kuehnle, also an elite event rider, who aspires to become a champion showjumper. “I would rather horses more than school when I was younger,” Daniels says. As the film begins, he hopes to make the Irish team for the delayed Tokyo Olympics. “There’s a big difference between that and doing it as a profession.”
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And then there is a trek to Union Hall, in west Co Cork, where the Burchill family have horses in their marrow. “In so many sports there’s so much distinction between men and women,” says Deirdre Burchill, a final-year law student. “Here, if you’re good enough, you’re good enough. If there’s mutual trust, there’s nothing stronger than that bond.”
As with Liam Lynskey, in Mayo, horses offer a window into the Burchills’ past. “It’s so deep-rooted in us,” says Deirdre. “It’s a family affair, really — the bloodlines that my grandad established. One I want to keep going myself.”
Horse Country’s directors, Kate O’Callaghan and Patrick Farrelly, have changed tack with their latest feature. Their previous film, Marian, was a moving portrait of the late broadcaster Marian Finucane. Horse Country is winningly slight slow TV: a six-part series that demands nothing of the viewer except their time. And which rewards them with a soothing portrait of some of Ireland’s most charming superhoofers.
