The Smithfield horse market took place on the first Sunday of every month since the 1980s, in the Smithfield Plaza just to the west of Dublin city centre. I happened upon it by accident early one morning. The scene was chaos. A gentrified public square crammed full of horses, dealers from the country, and hundreds of local kids. The smell of manure hanging heavily in the air, and an electric, noisy atmosphere. I rushed home to collect my camera, and was transfixed for the next three years. I had just started shooting film around that time. I came every month to observe the spectacle, and began to recognise the traveller salesmen. The nags themselves were sorry souls, bred to sell, neglected. It was upsetting to see them being beaten, then shackled to carts and forced to tear down the slippery cobbles of Smithfield, by loutish, show-off owners.