Does the news from the Minister for Justice, John O'Donoghue that we will very soon have mounted police on the streets of Dublin mean we will eventually reinstitute the horse guards?
During State visits abroad, including France, Spain and Portugal, the Irish party with former President, Mrs Robinson were much impressed by the beauty and grandeur of the cavalry and regretted that despite being a horsy nation we did away with our ceremonial horse guards in 1949 in favour of Army motorcyclists. Now we are importing trained police horses from England.
The Blue Hussars, as the Mounted Escort was unofficially called, was established in 1931 and first appeared at the Eucharistic Congress the following year. Its members, who turned out for escort and ceremonial duties, were mostly drawn from the Field Artillery in Kildare and generally numbered three officers and 60 other ranks wearing black bearskins with plumes on their heads, blue tunics and breeches, and much braid.
Practically every European country has such an escort, yet few have the tradition and love of horses we have. Many nations also have mounted police, a method of crowd control suggested here on several occasions by deputy commissioner Tommy O'Reilly, but consistently rejected until taken up recently by the current Garda Commissioner, Pat Byrne.
Some may recall that the Irish cavalry escorted the President around the RDS in a horse-drawn carriage at the opening of the annual Spring Show. It is said the practice was abandoned when a groom gave one of the horses such a wallop as it entered the enclosure that it took off as a ferocious gallop, the carriage overturned half way round the ring and President Sean T O'Kelly landed upside down on the ground with his wife on top of him.