I dreamt I was on The Curragh of Kildare, that flat Irish plain,
where equine athletes train, and not far from where, in 1914,
Anglo-Irish officers staged a mutiny,
in protest against a British Parliament trying to establish home rule.

But the Angelus Bells, that daily national radio broadcast reminder of Catholic piety,
disturbed my day dreaming, and I made the sign of the cross,
but fell into a pile of sticky stuff, deposited by a horse.

It turned me a mottled shade of green, like the mountainous horizon
above my little village of Muff, in that forgotten county of Donegal.

I told this tale to a gypsy woman, who cried, ‘Alas, those who loved the British Empire,
weren’t keen on our people in their newly-established union,
but didn’t mind them serving in their armed forces in The Second World War,
despite Eire being officially ‘neutral’.

‘Ah,’ she sighed, ‘and they loved our golden beaches, dominated by those soaring hills,
Slieve League and Errigal.’

I agreed, saying, ‘You can’t beat a pint in Ballybofey, or a pot of tay in Port Salon,
where a mule kicked me on the bottom, and I developed a childhood phobia of all things equine.

But Maggie from Muckamull, in the loyal county of Down,
thought I was very brave, as I stifled a tear, and so was she,
walking behind the coffin of her father, murdered by a terrorist bomb.

That night I returned to the Land of Nod, and in this dreamlike state,
watched a Kildare horse thunder by.

I grabbed its tail, but gee gees are disdainful of dreamers like me.
But I bet on it to win the Grand National, saying a prayer to Saint Kevin,
a Catholic saint, and that good protestant Maggie cheered when it romped home.

‘Ah,’ she sighed, ‘my dad loved this land.

‘I recall you being kicked by a mule,’ she said, ‘resulting in a very sore ass.
Ironic, considering that animal is a close relation of asses.

‘By the way, this country does seem to have more than our fair share of them.’

She had a way with words, did my childhood sweetheart,
who then shocked me by proposing, ‘Why don’t you ride a horse,
and get over your fear of the past?’

‘I think I’ve got over mine, now we have a peace which, who knows, may last?’

Then, after completing her challenge, I reflected, ‘Ah, Ireland’s a funny place,
we’re divided by history but love our sport, what’s that game with sticks called, hurly?

‘Not forgetting rugby, brought to us by the British.’

Then the equine athlete, upon which we gambled,
neighed and asked – or was it another dream? – ‘Give them all a
fiver to bet on me and my fellow speedsters,
and we’ll have a unity of minds, if not of the country.

‘Ah, they’re a funny lot, the Irish.’

Back in what I liked to call a waking state of reality,
opposed to my nocturnal one, I told my psychotherapist, ‘I’m having odd dreams.’

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘they’re symptomatic of this region’s troubled past.’

Later, I mused, 'A fat lot of help he was.’

Then, back in the Land of Nod, I found myself again on the Curragh of Kildare,
and like before, didn’t watch where I was going, but instead of falling in the sticky stuff,
was knocked down by a horse.

I got up and raced along, and this time succeeded in grabbing its tail,
but the Angelus Bells rang out, and I paused to think, while said steed eat grass,
ever the magnificent but dumb animal,
then was amazed to see Maggie’s late dad approach, saying, 'Put a fiver on that nag for the point-to-point races at Muckamoo.

‘We always had a flutter on the Irish Turf when I was in the police,
despite our leaders criticising the ‘rebel’ south.

‘I’ll give you a ton of hay if you win the National.’

But the horse's answer flummoxed me.

‘Sorry, no can do.

‘I’m going to follow your ancestors’ example,
those mainly protestant officers in the army camp here on the Curragh,
who mutinied, back in 1914.’

‘A donkey pal of mine had to carry screaming kids, along the hot sand in
the Co Down resort of Newcastle.

‘Never mind human rights, what about fair play for the four-hoofed worker?’

Then I woke up and attended hospital for another dose of therapy,
where Doctor Bedside described the dream – in which I’d talked to an animal – as horse s++it.

He thought he was being funny, but my dreamlike talk with a horse made more sense,
than all his therapy.

But, while walking though the park, he slipped and fell into a pile of manure,
left by a zebra from Belfast Zoo. 

It had been freed by animal rights activists, chanting, ‘Being locked up isn’t good for hoofers,
so let them all out, it’s only fair!’

Embarrassed, the therapist spotted me and turned a mottled shade of green,
just like I did at my favourite dreaming place, the Curragh of Kildare,
so I happily returned to the sanity of another dream.