FRANCES Hatton’s annual visit to Dublin Horse Show saw many wellwishers stopping to say hello to the Slyguff Stud matriarch. “I should be giving out tickets, like you’d take queueing up in the bank!” Linda, her amused daughter, said. Amongst them was Jim Mernagh, whose friendship with the O’Neill and Hatton families goes back over five decades.

Another was Pats Hassett, the driving force behind organising a local annual tractor run which recently raised over €7,000 for the West Clare Cancer Centre.