Giorroid Ó Mórdha (aka Gerald Moore) was a member of the Moore family of Moore Hall, Lough Carra, County Mayo, who became the subject of a folksong. He went to attend the races at Cnoc Bharuin (Knockbaron?) "telling his wife he would send for her on a given day; the next message she received, however, was that he had been killed by his horse. The song evokes the horseman's prowess, and sympathises with his widow, but it begins by referring to the grief reigning at Moore Hall." In an essay published in 1982, Brian O'Rourke states that an uncle of the writer George Moore, Augustus, was killed when thrown from his horse at Aintree in March 1845 and wonders if it is "possible that this incident underwent a transformation in the popular mind, giving rise to the folklore account referred to above? Or was there another Moore fatality on the turf?". Augustus Moore was described as "much loved but somewhat eccentric".
|