A hundred years ago today, an American artist was in Cork city, trying to buy a donkey with enough oomph to get him round the whole country. Without knowing a single person there, 36-year-old artist Harold Speakman spent summer 1924 travelling around Ireland – not by train, motorcar or bicycle, but by donkey and cart. That way he could see more, and get “just as near as I can to the heart of everyday people”.
On Saturday 1 June 1924, Speakman arrived in Cobh from New York aboard the steamship ‘Baltic’. Considered “plain for an American”, he was certainly a witty man. Reaching Cork, he quipped: “it is called such because it floats.
..” Depositing his bags at the Windsor Hotel, MacCurtain Street, he headed for an “out-of-the-way public house”, where he slumped over the bar in “the approved Corkonian manner”, and ignored Prohibition Laws back home by ordering a drink.
When he raised the subject of donkeys, a local horse-handler smiled and told him that even a good one would only go at walking speed. Better get a pony. But Sister Benedict at Presentation Convent convinced him to buy a donkey.
“Thousands” in Ireland use them, she said. First, he took the steam tram to Blarney Castle, where he bumped his nose on the Stone before giving it a “passionate” kiss – all totally unnecessary since he already had the ‘gift of the gab’. Next morning, he visited the Echo office to place a wanted advert for a donkey and cart to carry clothes, painting gea.
