August 7th, 1926: THE DUBLIN Horse Show was a notable date in the ancien regimes annual "season" and its future in the early 1920s was uncertain. In 1926, five years after the War of Independence, its first international military equestrian competition included a British army team which was greeted, like all the other teams, with its national anthem played by the Free State Army's band. The Irish Times saw the event as a portent of better times:
This week has made history for the Royal Dublin Society and, as we venture to think, for the Irish Free State. Four years ago, when civic turmoil raged and the country’s prospects were of the bleakest, most Irishmen believed that the Royal Dublin Society had seen its best days. The men who control it, however, “never doubted clouds would break”. They had faith in Ireland’s destinies, and now they have given triumphant proof that the Society’s present days are better than any that have gone before, and have created a solid confidence that its best days are yet to come . . . In every material respect the Horse Show of 1926 has been a magnificent success.
If this were all, then, the country’s debt to the Royal Dublin Society would be huge; but it becomes incalculable when we take moral, as well as material, considerations into account . . . Hitherto the people have lacked confidence in themselves and have practised, if they have not cultivated, an ignorance of the world’s affairs that has afflicted most of them with a sadly provincial outlook. The nation’s lack of confidence is responsible for many of its troubles – for its half-hearted methods in industry and its excessive demands upon the Government’s resources and initiative. From its provincial outlook result jealousy and suspicions of its neighbours and a foolish cherishing of ancient prejudices. This week’s Horse Show has been a great tonic for the nation’s want of faith in itself and an effective cathartic of narrow-mindedness. Here – not for the first time, but, perhaps, at a psychological moment – the Free State has done something supremely well. . . . n the contest of skill and courage between the champions of six armies, the Saorstát’s little Army acquitted itself not merely with credit, but with distinction. Our people ought to be thinking today that, if they can excel in one thing, they can excel in many things; and they have received a fascinating glimpse of the altogether friendly world that lies beyond their doors.
We tread on delicate ground when we remind the Free State of yet another boon which this memorable week has bestowed upon it. Those who, with the best intentions, seek to define stages of progress are apt to offend susceptibilities in this land of quick tempers and brooding thoughts. . . few good Irishmen can have watched yesterday’s spectacle at Ballsbridge without a profound stirring of the soul. To us, at least, it seemed that here was the beginning of the end of old animosities, the dawning of new brotherhood and understanding between Irishmen. Foreign visitors cannot have realised how electrical was the atmosphere when the band of the Free State Army heralded the teams with the strains of their national anthems. They cannot have known how thousands of Irish hearts throbbed to a dear and long unfamiliar music, and greeted with a new respect a music which till then had the most painful associations for them. How could foreigners have guessed that ceremonies which, to them were ordinary exchanges of courtesy represented for 30,000 Irishmen and Irishwomen a whole precious catalogue of hardly-won concessions and tolerances, or that on Friday evening the Free State Army became suddenly a national army in a sense hitherto unconceived? Thus was history made yesterday in the jumping enclosure at Ballsbridge.
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