Talented Wicklow born musician opens up about why she established a horse shelter in Kildare

Wicklow-bron musician Cathy Davey has opened up about what made her open up the Kildare-based animal shelter My Lovely Horse.

The talented singer/songwriter spoke of an incident while she was on a filed trip to a fish farm with her classmates in Yorkshire when she was a child. On the trip she noticed a fish with only one eye and notified the farm manager. The man in charge told the rest of her classmates they could squeeze the fish to death, which has highly upsetting for Ms Davey.

She has felt deep compassion for animals throughout her life, and in setting up the centre in 2013, she was able to help out unwanted and poorly treated horses first hand.

"We were lucky to find a place in Kildare; we rent the lands at a really reasonable price. It's a lovely old farmhouse on a few dozen acres. We have about 90 animals, and about 130 in our care when you take fosterers into account. There's a lot of early mornings and late nights, but we have a system going now and a really good fundraising team. I still visualise every injury that could happen in some kind of bid to prevent them. I obsess about fencing and possible accidents. That's my way of controlling things, but it is also good farm management," she told the Sunday Times.

The centre is entirely dependant on volunteers, donations and the goodness of people who are willing to re-home horses that they have taken in. It's a big operation, and Ms Davey outlines where some of the horses that are brought to the Kildare centre come from. It all began when she was walking dogs in a Dublin park for the Dogs In Distress and Dogs Aid trust in the late 00's and had a quick conversation with a park ranger.

"One day, the park ranger told us of these ponies in the inner city that were being bought cheaply, ridden into the ground as foals and then left, tied to a tree, to die. We rescued two ponies and got them fostered and then I said I would adopt one myself. Then another pony came along, and another, and another. Soon we had lots of ponies all around the country and it was a full-time job keeping them safe, and finding experienced people who knew how to look after them. We needed the centre."

While she is always looking for help in running the centre in Kildare and hoping for donations to the charity, Ms Davey is happy to have found what she labels as her 'calling' in life.

"My Lovely Horse Rescue has been my calling and it has changed me for the better. I sleep a lot better now I know I am doing everything I physically can to help — and that way I can relieve myself of the torture I used to experience."