Smithfield and around Travel Guide

A short walk west along Arran Quay from the Four Courts takes you into the cobbled expanse of Smithfield , a traditional public space where, for over three hundred years, horse fairs have taken place. In the 1980s the area became infamous as the meeting point for prostitutes and their clients until the idea was mooted to develop the square as Dublin's next cultural centre. Seemingly quixotic at the time, these plans have in many ways been realized by the building of the complex on its eastern edges known as Smithfield Village , which includes Chief O'Neill's Hotel , The Old Jameson Distillery , the Ceol Irish Traditional Music Centre , and the Jameson Chimney Observation Tower .

The square itself cast off its former scruffy image when architect Garry Ní Eanaigh's visionary plans were realized: the 400,000 cobbles were lifted, hand cleaned and replaced, and the square is now lit by twelve imposing 26-metre-high braziers which cast a two-metre flame skyward. Below these futuristic icons, on the first Sunday of the month, the travelling community's traditional horse sales still take place. A load of horse boxes carrying filthy ponies are brought together, and deals are finalized by spitting into the palm and clapping the hands together. There's nothing remotely glamorous about this entirely male activity, but the event does possess a certain fascination. Most of the buyers and sellers are travellers, once known as itinerants, and before that gypsies: people who speak their own dialect, known as shelta. In fact, shelta has nothing to do with Romany (the most common theory is that the travellers are of purely Irish origin, and took to the roads at the time of the Famine), but the travellers do share with gypsies an impressive knowledge of horses. After the sales you'll see scraggy ponies being ridden away bareback by equally scraggy young boys towards the grim northern suburbs, where impromptu pony races are held. There's great concern, however, that the sales, which date back to 1664, may not form part of the vision for the square, and at the time of writing, the traders were seeking assurances from the High Court that their traditional fair will be allowed to continue unhindered