There where the course is, Delight makes all of the one mind,

The riders upon the galloping horses,

The crowd that closes in behind.’

SO go the opening lines of At Galway Races, composed by W.B. Yeats in 1908 in response to a changing Ireland.

As Yeats set pen to paper, the pillars of Anglo-Irish rule were fractured and crumbling, and a new vision of Irish nationhood had begun to take shape. Faced with an uncertain future, Yeats, a passionate cultural nationalist, looked to Ireland’s past, lamenting the loss of Ireland’s ancient bardic tradition and the aristocratic patronage that had made it possible.

As Ireland edged toward the brink of profound change, Yeats looked to the famous summer race meeting at Ballybrit to express what he desired to accomplish through the arts: a unity of culture. It was there, regardless of creed, class or political inclination, that the irresistible power of horse racing made ‘all of the one mind.’

Yeats’s verse echoed the sentiments of The Galway Races, a popular 19th century ballad later recorded by The Dubliners, The Clancy Brothers and The Pogues. The protagonist of that song rode out through Galway town and encountered a crowd of ‘half a million people … of all denominations’, who shared ‘no animosity, no matter what persuasion.’ Instead, people travelled to Galway to spin ‘the sporting wheel of fortune’ and revel in the entertainments provided by pipers, fiddlers and dancers. The more privileged among them could also look forward to a ball, which was held at the Railway Hotel on the evening of the first day of the meeting.

The unknown author of ‘The Galway Races’ clearly recognised the unifying power of sport and culture, but they also recognised the more prosaic foundations of Galway’s quick success: Ireland’s expanding rail network. Among the throngs of people descending on the town were ‘passengers from Limerick, and passengers from Nenagh … the boys of Connemara, and the Clare unmarried maiden.’

The capacity of trains to transport large numbers of passengers over significant distances had a transformative effect on Irish society. Countless people, who before lived their lives almost exclusively within their locality, were now able to travel nationally. They did so for work, but they also did so for recreation. Horse racing benefited significantly from the new mobility of the Irish population; indeed, the success of the summer meeting at Galway depended upon it.

The Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) company extended its line to Galway in 1851 and 18 years later, in August 1869, a fleet of special trains travelled westward, transporting horses free of charge and carrying thousands of people from every corner of the island to the inaugural meeting at Ballybrit.

Many of those who travelled to Galway were accommodated in a makeshift campsite on the public park at Eyre Square and a report in the Connaught Telegraph described how ‘the streets were crowded with people anxious to participate in the pleasures of an event, the like of which they never had an opportunity of witnessing there before.’ Of course, the assemblage of large crowds had the potential to lead to trouble, or to what the Ballinrobe Chronicle politely termed ‘misunderstandings.’

The 1879 edition of the summer meeting was reported to be particularly eventful, with more ‘“jolly” belting’ than usual, beginning in the Railway Hotel and extending down to Salthill. Crowd disturbances did little to diminish the popularity of the meeting, however and, in the decades that followed, the Galway Races became a fixture on the Irish social calendar, with locals whitewashing their houses and with many visitors planning their holidays around it.

Eight races

But what about the racing? There were eight races on the card for the inaugural meeting at Ballybrit, with approximately 40,000 people in attendance across two days in August 1869. The course was designed by Thomas G. Waters – a civil engineer who was also responsible for laying out Punchestown, Fairyhouse and Cork Park. The architect of this great sporting and social occasion was William, Viscount St Lawrence, later fourth earl of Howth, who was the then MP for Galway.

St Lawrence was a leading actor in the development of jump racing in Ireland: he sponsored the Howth Races and later helped his father to establish Baldoyle Racecourse, aided Lord Drogheda in the establishment of Punchestown in 1861, and became a founding member of the Irish National Hunt Steeplechase Committee (INHSC) in 1870.

Notably, St Lawrence contested the INHSC’s early efforts to impose a minimum 10-stone handicap on all competing horses, arguing that it was ‘unjust and ill-suited to Ireland’, which was home to many ‘humble’ owners. St Lawrence’s commitment to the ‘small man’ was apparent at the inaugural meeting at Ballybrit – the card included both the Connaught Pony Race, valued at £10, and the Glenard Plate, which was open to tenant farmers and was valued at £50.

The main attraction, however, was the Galway Plate of 100 sovs., which was run over two and a half miles over eight jumps on the steeplechase course. Thirteen horses started the inaugural Plate and the race was ‘beautifully contested’ before being won by the mare, Absentee, who was owned and trained by Richard Bell and ridden by Bell’s son, William.

The standard of racing at Galway, even in its early years, was high. In 1875, the ‘hard-riding, hell-raising and happy-go-lucky’ Garry Moore won the Galway Plate on Liberator, a horse trained by his father, John Hubert Moore – father and son won the Aintree Grand National with the same horse in 1879.

No horse has dominated the Plate like Tipperary Boy, however, who achieved a yet unequalled treble in the race at the turn of the 20th century.

Galway Hurdle

The Galway Hurdle was added to the race programme in 1913, and the inaugural edition was won by Red Damsel, a horse owned by Baron F. de Tuyll.

The Ussher family had a long association with Ballybrit, with John Ussher’s Ishmael winning the Ballybrit Plate and Renmore Stakes at the inaugural meeting in 1869.

The Ussher stables turned out seven winners of the Galway Plate and Harry Ussher enjoyed considerable success at Ballybrit between 1920 and his death in 1957. Indeed, Harry trained every winner on the first day of the Festival in 1920, excepting the winner of the Plate.

The great Vincent O’Brien enjoyed success at the meeting in 1952, when the Irish Grand National-winning Alberoni won the Plate by a head from his stablemate, Lucky Dome. O’Brien’s brother Phonsie had more success at Galway, however, training four successive winners of the Plate between 1962 and 1965.

Wicklow-based trainer, Paddy Sleator, was another towering figure at Ballybrit in the mid-20th century, winning 24 races overall and the Plate a total of nine times. Sleator also won the Plate-Hurdle double with Knight Errant and Tymon Castle in 1957, with Knight Errant going on to win the Hurdle one year later.

The ‘King of Ballybrit’, however, is Dermot Weld, whose father Charlie trained the winner of the Plate in 1959 and who was 15 years old when he rode his first winner in the Galway Amateur Handicap in 1964.

It is as a trainer, however, that Weld has enjoyed unparalleled success at the Galway summer meeting, beginning in the 1970s. Since then, he has been crowned leading trainer at the festival on 30 occasions and, in 2022, saddled his 500th career winner on the track.

The greatest horse that Weld saddled at Galway was undoubtedly Ansar, who ran a dozen times at the summer meeting and won a remarkable seven races across all three codes – three chases, three hurdles and one flat race. This included wins in the Hurdle in 2001 and the Plate in 2004, a feat that had not been achieved since Knight Errant’s double in the 1950s.

Gradual evolution

In the 157 years since its inception, the Galway Races Summer Festival has transformed in scale and scope. This has been a gradual evolution, with the initial two-day meeting being increased to three days in 1959 and expanding to six days by 1982. This was a result of greater investment by the Racing Board and a growth in the commercial sponsorship of Irish horse racing from the 1960s.

Numerous companies have sponsored races in the succeeding decades, but it is Guinness that enjoys the most enduring connection to Galway, having sponsored the Galway Hurdle since 1965.

The growing success of Galway during the 1960s and ‘70s was also the result of a rise in disposable income among Irish households and a significant increase in car ownership – a development which offset the negative impact of the rationalisation of the railways.

A changing media landscape has enhanced the profile of Galway Races, too: alongside the Curragh Derby, the Galway Plate was the first horse race to be broadcast by 2RN (a predecessor of RTÉ) in 1929, and the summer meeting has been a fixture on television screens since the 1960s.

After the difficult 1980s, Ireland welcomed the first roar of the Celtic Tiger in the mid-1990s. Ireland’s newfound affluence was evident at race meetings all over the island, and particularly at Galway, with unprecedented crowds flocking to Ballybrit and with Ladies’ Day on Thursday becoming one of the social events of the year.

In 1999, with Ireland’s economic miracle in full effect, the Millenium Stand replaced the old Corrib Stand (once home to the longest bar in the world) and the Galway Races became a seven-day meeting. Further investment resulted in the opening of the Killanin Stand in 2007.

By then, the warning signs of an economic bubble, fuelled by an unsustainable housing market, were flashing red. The 2008 economic crash had an immediate impact on the Galway Races, and there was a marked decline in attendances and Tote revenue that year; a situation not helped by bad weather and by the meeting’s association with Fianna Fáil. The ‘Galway Tent’ – an annual Fianna Fáil fundraiser where politicians, bankers and property developers mixed freely – became a byword for a Celtic Tiger culture of consumption and greed.

The famous summer meeting at Galway bounced back quickly, however, and has gone from strength to strength in recent years. Its continued success is a testament to the racecourse staff who work hard to provide a special experience to thousands of racegoers every year. It also a testament to the timeless power of horse racing to enrapture and enthral, to bring people together, to make memories that last a lifetime.

Irish society may have changed almost beyond recognition since the gates to Ballybrit swung open for the first time 157 years ago, but the Irish people’s affinity for horses and their passion for to the sport they make possible endures. And the Galway Races remain a singular and truly special event on the Irish social calendar. Year after year, the crowds keep on coming to Ballybrit. There, they see the riders upon galloping horses and delight – never far away – makes them all of the one mind.

Frances Nolan is an SFI-IRC Pathway Fellow based at UCD School of History. Her book National Hunt and Point-to-Point Racing in Ireland runs to 328 pages and is priced at €29.95. Copies can be ordered online from fourcourtspress.ie. Frances will be a guest on RTÉ Radio 1’s Claire Byrne Show at approximately 9.45am on Monday.