Synonyms: Kerry Bog Pony
Term information
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9178-3965
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4142-7153
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5520-6597
A distinctive race of small ponies, the Celdones, proved useful to the Celtic people who settled permanently in the Atlantic areas of north-west Spain. Military and trading links between Ireland and Spain and Portugal may have brought some of these ponies to Ireland - especially to south-west Ireland. Cossar Ewart, writing in Nature in 1904, concluded that the Celtic Pony (Equus gracilis) is a distinct equine race. In the Bodleian Library (Oxford, England) there is a book depicting "Part of an Irish Procession at Stuttgart in 1617". The morphology of the equines portrayed and their height compared to the adult humans shown, suggest that these may have been ponies of the type known now as Kerry Bog Ponies or formerly as Irish Hobbies. In 1756 Charles Smith referred to a visit by Isaac Ware to Kerry in 1720 and to Ware's observation that such horses were formerly called Asturiones, as having been originally imported from the Asturias in Spain. Many Irish equines were used as pack horses or as cavalry horses during the Peninsular Wars (1804 - 1814) and again a century later during the Great War. Their removal from their native habitats greatly reduced the numberof horses and ponies in the Irish landscape. Changing lifestyles and methods of transport further reduced their numbers. Visitors to Kerry (Mr. And Mrs. S. C. Hall, 1840) and prominent British agricultural writers (e.g. David Low, 1842) referred to the distinctive small local ponies of Kerry. A century later Kevin Danaher (1962) referred to their use in Kerry for transport of sod peat from bog to roadside. These small, sure-footed, versatile ponies were used on family holdings in the mountains and valleys of Kerry for centuries. They were known locally as Hobbies. It is thought locally that this name may have been derived from a practice in Gaelic-speaking areas of calling "Hup, Hup" repeatedly to a pony to attract it home to the farmyard. The practice is known in Irish or Gaelic as obaireacht. The modern name - Kerry Bog Pony - reflects the qualities of their living and working environment