Daria Erhart was 12 years old when she visited Ireland on a family holiday. That two-week getaway, she says, is the reason she discovered her passion in life: working with horses.
“My parents let me have a little beach ride on a Connemara pony. I had only just started to horse ride and I nearly fell off because the pony was dragging down his head. We were going really fast on the beach and I just thought, ‘Wow, this is the best thing ever’,” she says.
“The lady told me all about the Connemara pony because I hadn’t heard about the breed before but they’re native to this area. That’s how I started to get to know about them. I think already in my head I was thinking maybe one day I could come back and work with Connemara ponies.”
Originally from central Switzerland, Erhart spent a summer working at Errislannan Manor riding school in Connemara, 10 years after her first time meeting the pony breed. Her friend had spent some time visiting different pony yards and told her about Errislannan, which seemed to fit exactly what she was looking for.
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She emailed the owner asking if she could work there during the summer for three months while she was on a break from university. The owner confirmed she could, and Erhart booked her flights as soon as possible.
“I knew that I would be picked up at the bus stop at Clifden and I remember I had this massive backpack that I could hardly carry. I had all my riding gear. I met my now really good friend Josephine and straight away we went for a pint of Guinness on the square,” she says of her arrival that summer in 2013.
“She seemed super nervous because she hadn’t lived with someone before and we were moving in together in a flat in Errislannan together. We both figured out that we’re both really into natural horsemanship and have the same ideas in how we work with horses so we just hit it off straight away.”
That summer is one Erhart remembers fondly. The three months were over far quicker than she wanted them to be.
“It was only the two of us living there [on the estate] and we would have picnics up on the mountain watching the sunset, bringing the dogs for a walk, and literally once a week we got a taxi into town. We would just do our shopping in town. Clifden is really famous for live music. We ended up going every week to these fabulous gigs,” she recalls.
For a Swiss person, we have such different routines. I didn’t know anybody who is a full-time musician in Switzerland
“The three months were over so quickly and I had to go back home again. I remember I went home and my mum had loads of photographs printed out in my bedroom and I couldn’t stop crying. I was so sad to be back and I was just like, ‘Holy moly, I’ve never felt like this before’.”
That feeling of sadness and as though she was missing a vital part of herself didn’t go away. As a result, she kept returning to Connemara each summer. The following year she met her now boyfriend, creating another reason to keep returning.
“We had the most magical summer and first we had a long-distance relationship for probably about two years. It was so hard. He’s a musician and we had such different lifestyles. For a Swiss person, we have such different routines. I didn’t know anybody who is a full-time musician in Switzerland,” Erhart says.
“I was studying in Latvia for six months so he came to see me there, but it was difficult. It was a bit tiring. We knew that after I finished we would like to spend more time together so it must have been 2016, we moved in together.”
The pair lived in an apartment behind a hotel in Clifden for four years, but the town is very seasonal, they say, with winter being a very quiet time. As a result, they often travelled during the winter, but kept Connemara as their base.
When the pandemic hit, that affected things again. Then, the owner of the Errislannan Manor riding school died, once again making Erhart question everything.
“Errislannan was every summer and I’d go back there and work. When that stopped, I didn’t really know what was happening,” she adds.
However, she later received a phone call from a local Connemara pony breeder who needed someone to look after their herd of ponies.
“That was about a year and a half ago and I’ve been full-time in the pony business since then. I really, really enjoy it,” she says.
Despite loving her new home, Erhart still has a lot of admiration for the country in which she grew up.
“It offers you everything. We have public transport everywhere, the school system is brilliant and we have so much freedom as children. Growing up in the centre of Europe, you can hop on a train and [in] two hours you are in Italy, an hour and a half [and] you’re in Germany; you have everything at your doorstep,” she says of Switzerland.
Switzerland and Ireland are quite different, she says. Switzerland is small and landlocked whereas living on the west coast and having the ocean on her doorstep is one of her favourite things about being in Ireland.
I would love to stay here. I would love to eventually buy some land and have a tiny house or renovate something, have some animals on the land
“There is civilisation everywhere [in Switzerland]. It’s probably half the size of Ireland and there are like 9 million people. It feels very busy. On the roads there is always traffic, there are houses everywhere. I just felt there wasn’t really any empty space,” she says.
“The pressure of having a proper job is also different. The way the system works is so different. Everyone saves and thinks about the future whereas here you definitely live way more in the moment. I had to relax about a lot of things.”
Ireland, she says, is her “forever home”. Between the culture, the environment, the animals and the people, Erhart says it is a place she loves.
“It’s a really very friendly place. People are very interested in each other, they’re like, ‘How are you getting on? What’s the story?’” she adds.
“I would love to stay here. I would love to eventually buy some land and have a tiny house or renovate something, have some animals on the land.”
We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com or tweet @newtotheparish
