The Forge

by Ian Sherry of Rostrevor, N. Ireland

While “The Forge” is now a popular name for a restaurant, it was once a place where metal was worked and horses were shod. And while there’s a perception (and that’s all it is) that in the past the great centre for the Irish male to collogue and tell stories was the pub; well, no, it was the blacksmith’s forge – a sort of “Men’s Shed.”

Shoeing horses is relatively new to Ireland; and so are metalled roads. That’s because of the Celtic tradition of not keeping thoroughfares open which would allow in plunderers and conquerors; and as late as 1698 a traveler in the Galway region noted there was no smith to shoe his horse. The Hobby, a much revered Irish light cavalry horse from the middle ages, and the Connemara had ‘hooves of iron’ and didn’t need shod. However by 1833 when the contract for the Dublin to Cork mail service read, “A coach drawn by four horses with four passengers inside and two outside, the journey to be performed inclusive of stoppages in twenty six and a half hours.” (That’s about seven miles per hour – horses needed to be shod.)

The forge in Rostrevor was in a very old street known as “The Back Lane.” There to the side of its entrance was a circular flat granite stone with a hole in its centre for shoeing cart wheels. And to the side of that a mountain of broken ploughs and other horse implements infringing on the road. As a child I was told very solemnly that somewhere in the heart of it was a broken chariot belonging to Brian Boru. An archway between houses led to a small yard and then the forge itself – a truly medieval barn. A high space with slates that could do with being pointed and a floor paved with thick wooden sleepers and flagged stone.

The fire itself (worthy of the High King) had pump bellows, the shaft cured and polished, with natural palm oils. In the centre of the forge there was plenty of room for a horse to be shod surrounded with stout wooden benches, anvils, metal tripods and lengths of steel. There was a tub of stagnant water, a scatterment of hammers and antique tongs and over in the corner cart loads of removes – old horse shoes. The place had more than a smell; it had an atmosphere of settled ferric dust, burnt hoof and the essence of thousands of horses that had been here.

James McCormick was close to retirement when I knew him. Always referred to simply as McCormick, he wore a split leather apron and demanded great respect. He knew the step of every horse and shod each one accordingly. Every horse was ‘hot shod.’ The shoe still red was placed against the hoof to embed a little and give a snug flat fit. Then cooled and tempered dipping and withdrawing in the tub of water – alchemy from the past. To watch McCormick nail on a set of shoes was to watch a craftsman and percussionist at work. The rhythm of tapping and adjusting the shoe, the driving the nail and the deft twist of the claw of the hammer breaking the nail and clinching it at the other side. And finally placing the shod hoof on the metal tripod, tapping in the flange on the front and smoothing with the rasp.

For a time I was “front of house.” Taking horses there and back and dealing with forgotten horses whose owners (with the best of intentions) had gone up the street for a bottle of stout and never came back. To shoe a horse was way beyond my pay grade but I could tighten and clinch a loose shoe or nail on a “remove.”

The forge in “The Back Lane” is long gone. Now known as Water Street – a very desirable place to live. Only two of the present residents would know the forge was ever there. McCormick had a lineage in the village going back to The Apostles. Robert (known by his Christian name) is our “local” farrier now – from Cookstown fifty miles away. It’s all no bother to him, communicating by mobile phone, his historic building is a transit van. In the late 1950s there were 50 working horses in the locality. Now there’s only my cob and he is doing so little he doesn’t count. Horses that had a purpose – worked and earned their corn – have been replaced by a different animal. Temperamentally suited to being unemployed, donkeys have flourished and now Shetlands have come to the fore. I gather a lot of Robert’s work is cold shoeing and trimming hooves; he’s an affable guy and would have thrived in the theatrical (dare I say Shakespearian) atmosphere of McCormick’s forge.

One morning when the topic in the forge was about Marketing Boards, our neighbour Davy (“this whiskey’s a bit small for its age”) Moore came in. In canine terms Davy was a Jack Russell terrier and a carnaptious one at that. The talk was now of how when pigs were killed at home the only option was to send them off to The Pig Marketing Board, who would grade the carcass and (in time) send out your payment – a price you had no option but to accept.

“When I was in Canada it was different,” Davy said. “You took the pigs to the factory yourself and saw them go in at one end of a massive automatic processing machine. They pressed a button, you walked along to where your pig came out at the other end; killed, graded, packaged, priced. The bacon, sausages, hams; you saw the quality and were paid immediately.” Everyone nodded in approval.

“Then,” said Davy, “if you didn’t like the price you could press another button, reverse the machine, and get your pig back.” I laughed out loud, but no one else did.

“Skitterin’ monkey,” someone said as Davy swaggered out.