Warrenscourt Country Fair

Editor’s note: This is a historical account of the Warrenscourt Country Fair, held between 1986 and 1989. Some of the activities and terminology mentioned, including gun-dog trials and hunting-related pursuits, reflect the period in which the events took place and do not accord with contemporary attitudes towards animal welfare or sporting activities. They are retained to accurately represent the historical account.

It is hard to believe it’s been 37 years since the first country fair was held in Warrenscourt on 22 June 1986. The objective was to provide a spectacular event of country pursuits and to raise funds for the Irish Guide Dogs.

The idea for the fair came about a year earlier, when a new field trial club, the Cork Field Trial Association (CFTA), was formed in the Cornerstone bar in Crookstown in February 1985 by people from Muskerry, and the surrounding gun clubs. The aim of the club was to improve the quality of hunting and retrieving dogs with trials and tests and training sessions on Sunday mornings in Carrigadrohid, on the banks of the River Lee.

Country fairs were quite popular then and many of our members were competing up and down the country and were indeed very successful, winning many trophies and rosettes. At one of our monthly meetings a suggestion was made as to why our club could not hold a country fair in Cork County. After some discussion, it was agreed to go ahead with one, and it was based loosely on the spectacular two-day event which was held annually in Adare Co. Limerick, a nineteenth-century neo-gothic castle on 840 acres steeped in history and once the family seat of the Earl of Dunraven.

With that decided, “Where?” was the next question. There was one place that ticked all the boxes: Warrenscourt. Getting permission was the next thing; one person suggested that would our go-between was Timothy J Fitzgerald (Ted), from Carrigadarrery, a friend of the Duggan family. Ted was dispatched to enquire about the possibility of holding the fair there. Ted got back to us shortly after and said that they were wholeheartedly on board. Conor, the owner, lived and worked in England at the time, so we liaised with Ted, Mary Duggan and Eleanora Duggan; sadly, all three have gone to their eternal rest (RIP). The scene was set, the proceeds were going to the Irish Guide Dogs and AIB came on board as the main sponsor; everything was ready: “Game On”.

As anyone that’s involved in organising shows would know, the amount of planning and going over every detail many times is a mammoth task, and to do that you need volunteers and lots of them. We were able to draw them from our own club, and also from a big pool the Irish Guide Dogs had. We had scouts, civil defence, Macra na Feirme, the army, Mossgrove and Poulanargid Harriers, Crookstown Vintage and many more clubs and associations, all amounting to over a hundred people.

At last June 22nd arrived. The fairground was a hive of activity with volunteers. The army was putting up tents, stall owners getting their wares ready, displays being erected and the ground being marked out for exhibitions. The civil defence and scouts were going over last-minute arrangements for parking and security for the house and farm. Every volunteer had his/her allotted task to carry out, and they had to be relieved every couple of hours, so it was all go to have everything ready for the official opening at 2.30 by the Lord Mayor of Cork, Dan Wallace, on his last day in office, and what a beautiful day it was. The gods were really looking down on us; the weather was glorious, and what a wonderful setting for a fair. The house was resplendent in the June sunshine, the 17 acres of freshly mowed lawn swept gently down to the manmade lakes with its pier and boathouse and all of this with a backdrop on one side of mature, majestic hardwood trees and rhododendrons, a forestry plantation, a 54-acre deer park on the other and also a 2-acre walled garden.

Warrenscourt was the ancestral home of the Warren family for two hundred years, built in the early 1700’s by Wallis Warren. It was burnt on June 17th, 1921, during the War of Independence, and it was sold to the Duggan family in 1922, who built the present-day house.

By late morning, the crowds were already starting to converge on the grounds, and there was a mixture of sights, sounds and smells with vintage cars, tractors and model steam engines huffing and puffing and whistles blowing. There were farm animals, horses and hounds, foot beagles, harriers, terriers, gun dogs going through their paces for the tests down at the lake. There was bleating from the sheep being sheared. There was a guide dog obstacle course, ferrets, snake charmer. There was the sound of music from the Mort Kelleher accordion band, the Butter Exchange band, Midleton accordion band, and set dancing. Smells of food cooking- chips, burgers, sausages came from the various food vans, and there was also a cooking demo in one of the tents. Mixed in with all that was the smell from the blacksmith mobile forge and also the fumes from the model aeroplanes.

There was something of interest for everyone: archery, judo, BMX bikes, clay pigeon shooting, fashion show, beekeeping, pony rides, Punch and Judy, crafts such as wood turning, basketmaking, weaving and spinning, cane making, pottery, taxidermy, sword fencing, fly casting, magician, face painting and many more side shows and stalls. A big attraction the first year was a hot air balloon, but it failed to take off the first and second year because of the wind, but finally got airborne in 1988.

Another attraction was a 1907-9 Silver Stream 3.1 litre touring car built in Kildare by Sommerville-Large, a railway engineer, with a French chassis and six cylinders 3065cc engine. The engine cost £67.10.00, with a German Boch ignition magneto and a dosan single carburetor. Denis Lucey, the then owner, converted it to a twin-carburettor coach design by Salmons of Newport, England and a windscreen and hood made by Lowe Bevan and Co. Birmingham and it also had a mother-in-law rear seat. Total cost of materials for the car was £370; plus labour. A luxury car built to the highest standards from the finest components. One of a kind. Denis Lucey bought the car from the nephew of the builder. Denis sold the car at an auction in England in 2007 for £162,224.

The fair ran for four years from 1986 – 1989 inc. with most of the attractions returning each year and with new ones added each year. We had a fantastic display of parachute landings inside on the fairground. On the last year we had Irish helicopters at the venue running a ten-minute tour of the countryside for £10, and there were long queues for it all day. We had the Southern Deer Society, cheese making, weightlifting, karate, silk craft, Muskerry Regional Macra na Feirme efficiency final, museum display and all of that for a £2 entry fee, great value for money.

We were extremely lucky with the weather for the four years. In 1988, the rain just kept off until 5 pm. We gained a lot of experience from each year we ran it, and by 1989 it was very professionally run thanks indeed to all the help we got from the scouts, civil defence, Macra na Feirme, the army, our own club and not forgetting the Gardai who kept the traffic flowing under the watchful eye of Sergeant Jim Nyhan of Farnanes.

It was very well supported; in fact, up to 10,000 people flocked each year to see what the fair had to offer. Between £30,000 and £35,000 was raised over the four years, which equates to close to €90,000 in today’s money; a tremendous credit to the people involved. But none of this could be achieved without the help and cooperation of the Duggan family, who enthusiastically supported us in the use of their farm and also through sponsorship. “Nothing was a problem”. Tom Murphy, the farm manager, was so helpful to us by cutting silage on the fields we wanted for parking, clay pigeon shooting, helicopter rides and model aeroplanes, etc. We literally took over the farm for a month. Tom went out of his way to help us.

At a meeting of the Mid Cork Field Trials Association in February 1990, it was decided to pull the blind down on the fair. With running costs soaring, insurance costs were based on the number of people coming to the fair, and we were quoted £1 per head, which would leave us with a bill of £10,000 for insurance alone. The chairman, Dermot Donovan, said that, only for the sponsorship, it would be running at a loss, and also the members had tied themselves up for months over the last four years, and they had achieved what they set out to do: to run a fair for the Irish Guide Dogs, but all of us are left with great memories of Warrenscourt Country Fair.

Acknowledgements

Dermot Donovan, Michael Dunlea, James Curtin, Nelius Cronin, Dan Joe Crowley, Aileen O’Sullivan, Gerard Long, Mary O’Mahony, Karen Lally. Photographs courtesy of Dermot Donovan and Conor Duggan.