Heaven Sent

“Steady boys, steady – steadyyyyy.”

Liam navigates the wagonette down the steep ascent of his lane and onto the road. The horses – Bonnie and Clyde – have their ears up and twitching and in the cold, frigid air, they seem eager to take to their heels and generate some heat.

“I’m not out with them as often as I’d like in the winter time but in the summer time, I’m out a lot,” Liam qualifies with a flick of the reins and a click of his tongue. “There’s nothing nicer than leading them up and taking them out around the roads for a drive.”

As he says this, a cheer goes up from the seating compartment at the back of the trap behind us. Up to a dozen children are there – most of whom are Liam’s grandchildren – all smiles, nervous excitement and hair flapping in the wind. They wave to passing cars and laugh.

“There’s nothing nicer,” Liam repeats. He indicates the children with a sideways nod. “They love it too.”

And yet, it has not always been thus.

Back in 2010, Liam Mimnagh’s son Gavin was diagnosed with a brain tumour and despite a nine month battle with cancer, he passed away the following July 31. He was 32 years old.

The former lorry diver’s passing had a devastating impact on the family he left behind, particularly, his father, Liam.

Overnight, Drumquin man Liam went from being very much a people person – he had been heavily involved on the sport of shooting – to being withdrawn, introverted and angry. And in the coming weeks and months, Liam’s mourning only deepened, as he was unable to rationalise the loss.

“When Gavin died, I turned against people,” he explains.

“I didn’t want to talk and I didn’t want to talk to people. I had lost my drive… I suppose it was a form of grief.

“Gavin passed in August and they came in January,” he remarks.

By ‘they,’ Liam is referring to two horses who arrived unbidden into his life and, to all intents and purposes, turned it around.

Looking back now, Liam is convinced that the horses – Bonnie and Clyde, as they have since come to be known – saved him from the debilitating grief following Gavin’s death and what is more, that they were sent to him by God.

Liam first encountered the two ponies one December evening on the road near Lough Bradan Forest, when he was returning home from work. He recalls that he was lucky not to drive straight into them with his car.

“I managed to put them off the road and into the forest again and then I phoned the police,” he says. “I thought they might be killed or kill someone else coming up to Christmas and I didn’t want any more sadness.

“Then it was January when the police rang me again to see if I would take them in. I said I would so long as I wouldn’t be known as a horse thief.

“They were both weak and in poor shape and Clyde especially, you could tell that whoever had had him, had been bad to him.

“But I took them in and at first, they were terrified of people. Clyde was really afraid. The two eyes would stand on him, if you’d go near him.

“And he’d back into the corner of the yard, come up on his back end and come off you with the front of the foot. It took months and months for him to trust me. It took from January to June or July before I could even put a hand on them.”

Incredibly, Liam had no previous experience with horses and yet some sixth sense told him that he should not give up on the two lost souls. With the help of some friends – Jack Lynch, Kenny Lynn and Gordon Colhoun – Liam and Bonnie and Clyde finally found their collective feet together.

“We kept cool and kept working away,” Liam smiles at the memory. “It was a nice challenge for me and it was something that I’d never done before.

“It was a win/win but I didn’t see that at the time. I didn’t understand what was happening and it took me a while to register that there was a reason for them being here in my life.

“They were sent to me, I think – well I don’t think it, I know it. And part of the system now is that I have to share the pleasure that they brought me.

“There were a few bruises and there were a few knocks – there was even an over-the-hedge on one occasion. There was a few scrimmages. But when I started to walk with them, I realised that I needed peace and my own space.”

The police contacted Liam again almost six months after he had first taken the horses in, and it was eventually decided that he could hold onto them indefinitely, as no other owners could be found.

“After that, we started to walk and talk and train some more and we got to where we are now.”

Liam continues, “The whole thing just came naturally. I didn’t go looking for anything. Everything just happened.

“They were sent to me and it worked.”

From being unable even to lay a hand on the horses, who would shy away into the corner of a field when Liam approached, the trio have since cultivated an intensely close relationship, so much so, that Bonnie and Clyde even greet him of a morning, ahead of feeding time.

Liam laughs, “Every morning I come out and come into the yard they neigh at me. It’s a ‘hello’ every morning. Horses can sense when somebody isn’t well… there is a natural kindness in them.

“It’s been all positive for me, apart from the odd bruise – and that over-the-hedge moment.”

Liam recalls that fateful Saturday evening when he taken the horses out for a drive, conveniently, around the time local parishioners were going to Mass. He laughs as he remembers the moment the horses “spooked” and he ended up in the hedge.

“I mind it well. I lay in the hedge as the cars were going up past so that they wouldn’t see me and think, ‘Mimnagh’s definitely lost the plot.’”

Now though, Liam says he feels bound to share the horses with others, as a form of sharing the joy – and redemption, even – that they brought into his life.

“I take them to residential homes. I try and share the pleasure that they brought me and it does work. I can see the joy from children and old people, especially – and it’s an honest joy.

“There was one time I took them down to a home… As I walked into the wee entrance, there came an aul lad out on a zimmer frame. He looked up. ‘Horses!’ he says. ‘Horses!’ He threw the zimmer frame to one side and came across to me.

“He felt down the back of the horse and down the horse’s legs and he says, ‘I’m 80 years of age and 60 of them, I was a blacksmith.’ It was a powerful experience for him.

“That kind of thing gives me great pleasure. That’s what it’s all about. If you can’t bring a smile, don’t bring a tear.

“That’s what we do, that’s what we try and do. That’s where the buzz is, that’s where the reward is; giving back what they gave to me – sharing the thing.”

“Steady boys, steady – steadyyyyy.”

Liam navigates the wagonette up a back road towards his house. The children are quiet now, the rush of the experience having settled into calm pleasure.

The Drumquin man indicates a whip attached to the side of the wagonette.

“You never seen me use it,” he says and it isn’t a question. “If I can’t control the horses with my voice, I’m in the wrong.

“A wee bit of praise and kindness, goes a long way – goes all the way. All animals are the same. You have to understand them to work with them.”

This is an intensely close bond.

Liam smiles. “I used to go out stressed and angry – not so much any more. Bonny now, she would teach me manners.

“Kathleen (Liam’s wife) even says I’ve got easier to live with since I got the horses.

“They really were a godsend to me. I like going round and sharing them with people.”