ON Tuesday there is a unique race meeting in Ireland, one of its kind in this country or Britain. This year sees the 149th running of an annual event that was first recorded in 1868 when it was held in conjunction with the Boyne Regatta, and was a mere side show to the rowing! This is the Laytown races.

One of the first stewards at the races was Charles Stewart Parnell, an Irish nationalist politician and one of the most powerful figures in the British House of Commons in the 1880s.