Wednesday 4 October 2017

The Londonderry Arms (Part 2 )

The Londonderry Arms Hotel is also associated with another unique bit of Irish history.  If you missed first part about the history of this hotel, CLICK HERE. In the pub room you’ll find photographs of one of Ireland’s most famous race horse of the 1960’s, Arkle. A national legend whose strength was claimed to have come from drinking Guinness twice a day, the horse was owned by Anne Grosvenor, the Duchess of Westminster, affectionately “Nancy” around the race course, whose husband was the richest man in England and a close friend of Winston Churchill, a horse owner himself. 


Now the story goes that if you rub your finger over the horse shoe and then buy a lottery tickets you are sure to win!  I rubbed the horse shoe but as I do not gamble, so did not buy a lottery ticket although some of the volunteers from Mount Stewart who were on this trip did!


Arkle’s skeleton can curiously still be seen on display at the Irish National Stud Museum in Kildare, Ireland east of Dublin and I was fortunate to have visited there and taken this photograph of it.





Many thanks for visiting and also for leaving any comments.

8 comments:

  1. Goodness, they have his skeleton on display!!! Arkle must have been truly beloved.

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  2. and did they win ? I have heard of this before. Lucky horse shoe

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  3. Such a very interesting story. The skeleton is a curious exhibit. Thank you for the post Margaret.

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  4. Hello, the skeleton on display seems strange. I would try my luck with the horseshoe and lottery ticket. Happy Wednesday, enjoy your day!

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  5. How curious to have Ankle's skeleton on display. Seems a bit morbid. A photograph and silver plaque might have honored the horse in grand style without the skeleton, but then it is almost Halloween.

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  6. A fascinating post...really interesting way to honor this wonderful horse.

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  7. Interesting story! Funny that they preserved the horse's skeleton.

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  8. How fun to see what other people think is important enough to keep around!

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